


As the Moon Loves the Sun

by unnieunnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Background Relationships, Here a switch there a switch everywhere a switch switch, I do not write sad endings, I'm so sorry baekhyun, M/M, POV Alternating, a wild idol appears, but it gets pretty angsty for a while, cursing, everybody loves jongdae, gangster!xiumin, identity crisis, pan!chan, panchan, pansexual!chanyeol, random appearances by one thousand idols, references to violence, student!jongdae, the porn gets totally derailed by plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 17:19:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 72,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15562656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnieunnie/pseuds/unnieunnie
Summary: One lost bag, one overly intense money launderer, and one music student: it's the beginning of a lot of trouble that might just end up being love.





	1. Jongdae

By the time he had folded the last t-shirt into its neat stack and pulled the wire rack down over Top Fashion’s storefront, Jongdae was so tired that the world looked fuzzy. That, or he needed glasses, which he couldn’t afford, so it would have to be exhaustion.

“Two more days,” he muttered, making one more pass-through as he worked his way to the staff room in the back, finding a stray pair of earrings hanging with the belts.

Two more days of juggling three classes and two jobs, and then one of his rare days off. Sure he had a paper due on Thursday and an exam next Monday, but Wednesday would contain such bliss as sleeping in, wearing nothing more complex than sweatpants, and having conversations with people he actually liked. A little. Assuming Jongin had done the dishes.

He had to get through two more 16-hour days first, though. Top Fashion’s owner was not a _complete_ monster and kept a small fridge stocked with snacks that was Jongdae’s lifeline more than he wanted anyone to know. He grabbed a tuna kimbap to stuff in his jacket packet and a water for the bus ride home, then reached for his backpack.

It wasn’t there.

It. What?

Jongdae searched the staff room, panic and despair giving him a burst of energy, but there was no saving it: his backpack was gone. He had had it in class, for sure. He had it during that precious hour’s break at Cuppa, where he could eat for free and study.

Ah, crap, he’d been looking at his phone when Taeyong showed up to drive him to work, late and rushed. He’d left it.

Everything was in his backpack – notebooks, textbooks, laptop.

Everything.

His knees lost their ability to hold him up any longer. Jongdae crouched down and pulled at his hair, but the sting of this didn’t quell his dread one bit. All his class notes. His laptop!

He’d never be able to afford a new backpack, much less new textbooks. Much less a new computer.

He was so, so fucked.

Waiting at the bus stop, he thought, ‘maybe somebody turned it in’ and felt better for several whole minutes together. He worked at Cuppa. Amber and Key were working when he left. Either one of them would recognize his backpack and keep it safe.

On the bus, he thought about some of the sketchy types who came in sometimes: ratty-looking students like himself, homeless people who paid for their coffees with coins, dudes in wrinkled, shiny suits who tried too hard to look you in the eye. Any one of them might sit in the far left booth by the window, find a backpack with a laptop in it, and head straight for the nearest pawn shop.

He leaned his head against the cold glass of the bus window in lieu of barfing. The real shit of it was that his laptop was infinitely precious to him, with its school stuff, sure, but also music files and family photos, and all the ‘eat healthy for less’ recipes his mom emailed him that he dutifully saved despite being too broke to try any of them, since they weren’t ‘eat healthy for nothing.’ But it was 7 years old and couldn’t hold a charge, so anyone pawning it would be lucky to get 5000 won for it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

_And_ it had started raining by the time he got off the bus.

 

The apartment was dark when he let himself in. Jongin was asleep on the sofa. Having lived with him for years, Jongdae didn’t bother to be particularly quiet: Jongin could – and had – sleep through a typhoon. Stripped out of his wet clothes and a hot shower later, Jongdae sat on Jongin’s bed and gave himself a small lecture on not waking up exhausted roommates just to bitch about a backpack that would still be just as lost in the morning. And on the fact that if he didn’t have any of his study notes, he could at least catch up on sleep. Taking advantage of this nice bed with lots of leg room, for a change.

He’d been so upset that he hadn’t even eaten his kimbap. So at least he’d get lunch tomorrow while the rest of the world was falling apart. 


	2. Xiumin

Some things one didn’t outsource. Case in point: delivering condolences on the death of a business partner of such long standing that he had still referred to one as “kid” as recently as 4 months ago. Particularly when the heir to said business partner was a young woman not only given to an overblown confidence in her business skills but also exceptionally hot.

Sadly, the whole thing had been tiresome. Chaeyoung was beautiful, smart, and as green and ignorant as a recruit, with her fancy Swiss education and her coddled upbringing. It would never be easy for a young woman in their business, but she went immediately for the throat, demanded a ten percent decrease in his cut and – astounding! – to know the identity of several of their mainland partners.

A pity. Xiumin might’ve considered bending on the cut if Chaeyoung had shown even a glimmer of grief. Her old man had loved her to distraction, and while some of their colleagues had mocked him for it, Xiumin had always been a little jealous. It made one sharper, to have something or someone to work for. Pure profit was boring.

So he emerged from YG Tower annoyed on several discrete levels: with Chaeyoung for her ignorance, with his subordinates at ExO for fretting over the potential loss of their second biggest client, and even with his old sunbaenim for dying on the golf course with a smile on his face.

What a mess.

Xiumin loosened his tie and squinted up at the sun. It was the first day when the dry, cool breeze made it clear that summer was coming to a close. He could feel in various formerly broken bones that it would rain later – but the afternoon was pretty.

“Sir,” his driver said, and opened the car door.

It would be a silent ride to the office, followed by an afternoon of Suho fretting over his number projections, sliding Excel spreadsheets in front of him. As if they weren’t rolling in cash, as if they didn’t have the country at their fingertips.

But Suho was ambitious. He didn’t want one tiny East Asian country. He wanted the whole world.

It would’ve made a lot more sense to Xiumin if he knew what _for_ – otherwise running the world was just so much routine. Take money from hands covered in one sin or another and feed it through casinos, strip clubs, laundromats, restaurants from five-star to negative-star, and pull it out the other side clean.

Tedious.

“Sir?” the driver repeated.

“I’ll walk,” Xiumin said, surprising himself as much as the driver, who frowned.

“Sir, I don’t think –“

“No, you don’t, because your job is to drive,” Xiumin said, pitching his voice to the soft, cold tone that never failed to make a hearer blanch.

“Yes sir.”

“I’ll make my way back to the office shortly. Please let Kim Suho-ssi know.”

“Yes sir.”

As the car pulled away, Xiumin allowed himself a moment to wonder at this oddness. How long had it been since he last went anywhere alone besides his own apartment? How long had it been since he last took a walk?

He was struck again by the image of his sunbaenim on the tenth green, his back arched but his face calm as he stared up at the sun until his eyes went lifeless.

Perhaps that was the reason for it. It wasn’t as if relative youth was a guarantee of anything, even for people not in a dangerous business.

The sidewalk was busy, despite it being the middle of a work day. The weather was too nice to resist, and Xiumin stared around at all these soft, normal people, with their safe little jobs. What would it be like? He envied the trio on one corner, suit jackets slung over their shoulders while they ate ice cream and laughed. He envied the girl at a flower shop, tying up a bouquet of late tulips for one harried-looking man.

In one shop, two boys – no, a boy and a girl – danced side by side behind a polished wooden counter, as if they’d never had a care in their lives.

He went inside.

The two stopped moving as soon as the bell on the door rang, but at his smile they grinned at him. The shop was bright and minimally furnished and smelled of herbs. Oh: a tea shop.

He was more of a coffee drinker, but for the sake of the afternoon, he’d make an exception.

“Just choose for me,” he said to the young man, who arched one sculpted eyebrow and said,

“Sir, tea is highly personal. How could I possibly? I don’t even know if you prefer a green to an oolong, much less –“

Xiumin held up one hand and discovered himself to be laughing, however internally.

“I’m a coffee drinker,” he said. “Educate me.”

“On it,” the girl said.

Xiumin sat at one of the window booths (facing the door, of course), and let the bickering of the two behind the counter become background noise. What a pleasant place. If he and sunbaenim’s daughter had met here, perhaps they could’ve started their business relationship on a friendlier note. What a shame. He’d have to work on her now, to make sure –

His foot brushed something under the table.

“Here you go,” the young man said, setting a tray with three small teacups in front of him. “A custom tea flight, just for you.”

He described the teas charmingly, and Xiumin might’ve bothered to remember the information if it had seemed important. As it was, he set his face as if listening attentively and really only made note that he was supposed to drink the cups from left to right. Meanwhile, he felt around with his foot and determined that there was a bag under the table.

Given that it was a tea shop in a part of town he never frequented and no one knew he was here, it was probably _not_ a bag with a bomb in it. Just in case, he waited until the young man was as far away as he’d get, back behind the counter with the girl, where there would be some measure of protection.

His old mentor Yunho would’ve told him to leave it. He also would’ve known that Xiumin was too careful to take the risk of not investigating. He leaned down and lifted the bag, exhaling only a little when nothing happened.

The navy bag was remarkable by virtue of its raggedness – it looked as if it were held together solely by habit. There was a worn patch for the Gyeonggi-do Youth Chorus sewn on the front, and on one strap a faded logo for a long-broken-up idol group in black marker.

Xiumin grinned to himself, imagining his colleagues’ surprise if they knew he was even aware of the existence of idol groups beyond useful ways to launder money via gala events. Of course, if any of them found out about his visual kei period, he’d have to kill them.

The front pocket held a half-used tube of lip balm, a broken carabiner, half a protein bar folded carefully into its wrapper, and a school ID for Seoul Polytechnic University belonging to Kim Jongdae.

Xiumin laid the ID on the table in front of him and sipped the first cup of tea, which tasted vaguely more flavorful than plain hot water. Good-looking kid, this Kim Jongdae: a firm, square chin, graceful neck. And between the curve of his mouth and his strong, angled eyebrows, he had a wicked look, as if he were on the verge of telling a dirty joke. The ID said ‘GRAD-MUS,’ and according to the birthday he was 26, so a grad student?

The second cup of tea had a stronger flavor, with an aftertaste akin to popcorn. Surprising. Inside the bag, Xiumin found an elderly laptop, a textbook each on advanced music theory and principles of composition, a notebook, and a planner.

He still had a cup and a half of tea left. He shrugged and pulled the latter two items out.

The planner was stuffed full of receipts, ticket stubs from concerts (mostly classical and all on the university campus), and endless notes in small, tidy handwriting. Class schedules, with tests and assignments highlighted, along with reminders 1 and 2 weeks preceding. Work schedules for at least 2 jobs. ‘CALL MOM’ once a week, when there was a break amid all the working. Study schedules. A couple of times, ‘stipend disbursement’ next to a truly pitiful number.

Inside the back cover, a list titled ‘Borrowed’ and two columns of numbers, JI and CY, for such small amounts that Xiumin would’ve laughed to be asked for them. Still, he liked how meticulous this guy was. Liked how he wrote ‘free day’ in large letters with squiggles and exclamation points around it. He was busy and broke, but another person to envy, this Jongdae with his troublemaker’s face, studying music and living a simple life, never having to look over his shoulder.

But then, while he paged through the notebook, sipping the third, bitter tea, on one page notes about ‘altered dominants’ (whatever that meant) gave way to numbers, a steady subtraction that ended three times in the same negative number, and under that,

“I can’t ask for any more.

What am I going to do?”

And lower down the page, in tiny letters,

“I’m so _hungry_. I’m so tired. I don’t know if I can keep this up anymore.”

Xiumin looked at the date on the notes and went back to the planner. Starting from the week of that page in the notebook, scheduled entries for ‘violin’ and ‘voice’ were crossed out – usually with a single straight line, but several times with angry scrawls – for a month until they stopped appearing at all. And the work schedules around that time had been changed, to add more hours.

Xiumin set the cup down, felt all his calm cheer drain out of him. Who was he kidding? Wandering around like he was the only one with world with cares, when he could probably pay off this guy’s tuition with just the cash in his office safe.

He grinned, and felt it to be more like his usual, sharky smile.

Wouldn’t that be a method to clean money that no one would expect? He’d have to look into that.

In the meantime, time to stop dreaming like a fool and get back to the office. But he let whimsy dictate him a little further: he took a photo of the inside cover of the planner, where Jongdae had written his address, and tucked two fifty-thousand-won bills inside.

“I found this at the booth,” he said at the counter, handing the bag over.

“Oh shi- uh, wow, that’s Dae’s. Thanks. We’ll get it back to our coworker,” the boy said.

“Poor Dae. When he realizes it’s gone, he’ll have one of his silent meltdowns,” the girl said.

They declared his tea on the house, for his service. Being out a hundred thousand won, Xiumin didn’t protest.


	3. Jongdae

Jongdae bolted awake in the dark, heart pounding, not from a dream about his lost backpack, exactly, but from the knowledge of it, even as he slept the sleep of the truly exhausted.

It was 4 am – too early to move around the apartment, especially if Jongin was still on the sofa, and too early to leave for work. He crept out and retrieved the few study materials he hadn’t had in his backpack. Jongin didn’t have a desk, so Jongdae stood with his notebook open on top of the dresser and stared at the words.

None of them actually made it into his brain. ‘What am I going to do’ was too strong a refrain, repeating in his mind at increasing volume. A paper due, with nothing to write it on. An exam, with no notes. Two classes with no textbooks, and dammit, his _planner._ Shit, his planner.

He was so screwed.

A screech sounded in the living room, followed by Jongin’s groan of protest that any day should start before noon. Jongdae sighed, closed his notebook, and went out to face the load of crap that awaited him. Jongin’s alarm was still going off when he opened the door, and across the apartment, Chanyeol grinned at him, hair (currently red) so ruffled by sleep that it added several centimeters to his already considerable height.

“Come on, Nini,” Chanyeol said, crossing and laying his hand on Jongin’s hair. “Turn that awful sound off.”

Jongin nodded around a yawn and fumbled with his phone, and the noise finally stopped.

“Thanks,” Chanyeol said. “Worst and most effective alarm ever.”

Jongdae clenched the notebook in his hand until the spiral cut into his palm. He was going to have to tell them, and they’d be sympathetic, and they’d offer to help. They’d help, and he would owe them even more, and it was so unfair.

“Ahhh, hey,” Jongin said, still yawning his head in half. “Dae, d’you sleep in my room? Good. I’m glad you didn’t try anything silly like waking me up last night.”

Jongdae failed at his attempt to smile. Jongin didn’t even have the decency to be asleep enough to not notice.

“Jongdae? What’s wrong?”

Chanyeol unfolded out of the fridge and turned to stare.

Jongdae opened his mouth but couldn’t find any sound to come out of it.

“God!” Chan said. “You look like somebody died!”

He stopped and put his hand over his mouth.

“Nobody died, did they? Not your–”

Jongdae could at least shake his head. Nobody was dead. Though how he’d keep going, he had no idea.

“Aw, Jongdae,” Chanyeol said, crossing the room in three strides and folding him up in a hug.

Being hugged by Chanyeol was like being wrapped in a duvet. He was all-encompassing, and normally Jongdae would wriggle and protest, but for a minute he allowed himself to hang onto his friend.

“What happened?” Chanyeol rumbled to the top of his head.

Jongdae shook his head again.

“Come on, man,” Chanyeol said, letting go and tugging him toward the kitchen. “Don’t be dumb. A burden shared is half the weight.”

“It’s too early for philosophy,” Jongin said, punching buttons on the coffee maker. “Even if he is right.”

They were all three old hands at this now, the comfort-and-support ritual. Jongdae let Chanyeol push him down into a chair and accepted the glass of orange juice from Nini. It was almost as sour as knowing that he was the one in need of comfort and support _again_.

They let him stew until Chanyeol plunked a mug in front of him and shoved over the sugar bowl.

“Okay, spill.”

“I lost.” He took a breath. “I lost my backpack.”

It sounded so dumb, said aloud. Like it was nothing. Chan and Nini stared at him briefly, and then Chan’s mouth fell open.

Oh! With your laptop in it?”

Jongdae nodded.

“Couple of my textbooks. My class notes. My planner.”

“Aw, Dae,” Nini said, squeezing his hand. “That sucks.”

“My planner, you guys. I had. I was keeping track of how much I owe you guys in there, I don’t even know –“

“Jongdae,” Chanyeol said softly, “you know we don’t care about that.”

“I don’t – I can’t replace it, you guys. All my notebooks. I have a paper due next week. I have – I have an exam. I can’t work any more hours than I already do, I don’t.”

“Hey, come on,” Jongin said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“You guys shouldn’t have to –“

“Shouldn’t have to what, Dae? Care about our friend?” Chanyeol said. “Look, man, we may not be able to help you replace your laptop, but we can sure as hell make sure you have a place to live and not starve. As far as I’m concerned, until you’ve replaced everything, we’re not taking another won of rent.”

”Agreed,” Jongin said, and squeezed when Jongdae tried to pull his hand away.

“I’m already paying less than my fair share!”

“You don’t even have your own bedroom, of course you should pay less!”

“I won’t be a burden –“

“You’re not a burden, Jongdae,” Jongin said. “You would do the same for either one of us.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh, shut up, Dae,” Chanyeol said, and grinned wide when Jongdae glared at him. “We’ve known you for years. Don’t try to act like you’re stupid enough to believe we won’t stick by you. We all know you’re smarter than that.”

Well, he wasn’t smart enough to come up with a response.

“Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen us through our own stuff,” Jongin said. “Like when all three people Chanyeol was dating at once found out about each other.”

That _had_ been a pretty dramatic time.

“Hey, I never said anything about exclusivity, it was all a misunderstanding!” Chan shouted, and narrowly avoided sweeping his coffee mug and the carton of cream onto the floor. “And that was nothing on the ten minutes when you thought you hadn’t gotten into the training program.”

“That’s true,” Jongdae said. “Those ten minutes were awful.”

“It was four days, you jerks,” Nini said, laughing. “And only my childhood dream on the line, you could’ve been a little sympathetic.”

“Sympathetic! I recall Dae holding your hand for thirty-six hours straight while I had to spoon-feed you!”

It hadn’t been quite that bad, but for the moment, being able to just breathe and laugh made Jongdae think – however unlikely – that maybe things would work out. Maybe, by some miracle, everything would be okay.

“Right,” Chan said. “Desperate students and promising young dancers require breakfast. You want eggs or fried rice?”

 

Between his excellent taste in friends and a full stomach, by the time he and Jongin parted ways in front of Cuppa, Jongdae was ready to face the extra levels of running around that would be necessary to get through the rest of the semester. He did math in his head the whole trip – if he didn’t have to pay his share of the rent, in 4 or 5 months he could buy a refurbished laptop. In 2, he’d have enough to get one on payments from a pawn shop or something. He’d pay three times as much that way, but he’d get one sooner. In the meantime, there were internet cafes. There were a couple classmates he could probably hit up to borrow their textbooks. He’d find a way to make it work. All he had to do was work even harder and move even faster. Hopefully he could get through long enough for something to ease up before he collapsed.

And then: a miracle.

“You should’ve seen this guy!” Amber said, holding his backpack like it wasn’t the most improbable object on the whole peninsula. “Gorgeous, right? Like a seriously, seriously beautiful dude, wearing a suit that probably cost enough to buy a car. But he was _spooky_. I would not cross that guy on a bet. Just.”

She shivered, whole body and dramatic.

“Whew. I had to stomp on Key’s foot to stop him from going over to tell the dude he was drinking tea all wrong, I was afraid that would end up with him wearing Key’s skin for a hat.”

“I can’t believe it’s here,” Jongdae said.

“He was super rich! What rich dude’s gonna steal this thing, it looks old enough to get a driver’s license.”

“I thought for sure it would be gone.”

“Yeah, I bet. You carry your whole life in this thing, what a night you probably had! Better eat a muffin for fortitude, we have those cherry ones today.”

“Thanks, Amber.”

Her grin softened into a lopsided smile.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve called you so you wouldn’t worry. You know you’re my favorite coworker, right?”

“Don’t be so nice to me, I might cry on you.”

“Yuck.”

“Right?”

He couldn’t believe it. Amber bustled around, taking care of the couple of customers who wandered in for long enough that he could go through his bag. It was all there, all his stuff. He was okay. He’d thrown a big fit, and now everything would be okay.

“You’d better keep smiling like that,” Amber said when she clocked out a couple of hours later. “Look at the tip jar!”

Jongdae floated through his day. His shift went great, and the tuna kimbap from yesterday was only a little squashed in his jacket pocket but tasted fine. His lectures were super interesting, and it was his early day at Top Fashion, so he didn’t even have to close.

Back at the apartment, nobody else was home. He sat on the floor in front of the coffee table with a pot of ramen and spread out all his belongings, just so he could look at them and be happy they had returned to him.

So great. Even the numbers in the back cover of his planner couldn’t bum him out too much. There wasn’t any need for Chanyeol and Jongin to spot his rent now. He could just keep trucking along like he had been, and it would all work out somehow.

A slip of paper slid out of the front cover of the planner. Jongdae knew he was super careful about taping down important things and tucking any little notes into the pocket pages. Weird. He turned to the front.

There was – cash – in his planner. A hundred thousand won in his planner!

The only time he saw that kind of money in cash was at work. Where had it come from? Had Amber?

No way. She was just as broke as anybody else.

That left only the rich guy having gone through his stuff and left it there.

The thought that the scary rich guy had felt so sorry for him that he tucked a bunch of cash into his planner made Jongdae feel bad for a couple of minutes. But it wasn’t like he knew who the guy was and could pay him back or anything.

He looked at the time: Chan and Nini would both be home within the hour. What he _could_ do was be the one providing dinner for once.

“Chicken and beer _and_ noodles?” Chanyeol called down from on high, standing in the doorway. “What happened? Did you finally snap?”

“You’re standing between me and the food,” Jongin said.

“Aw man, I’m so happy for you,” Chanyeol said when Jongdae held up his backpack, drawing him into a one-armed hug.

Jongdae was so relieved he didn’t even mind that this meant his head was lodged firmly in Chan’s armpit.

“What a relief, that’s so great. I knew it would work out.”

“You didn’t know shit.”

“I never do, and somehow it always works out anyway.”


	4. Xiumin

It was strange, how Xiumin kept thinking of that sad little backpack. He hoped Kim Jongdae had found the cash by now, perhaps bought himself a treat with it. Surely his friends, who had been so generous with their five thousand won here, their twenty thousand won there, wouldn’t have required him to hand it over. Who could be cruel to that handsome face?

Xiumin blinked at himself. What an odd thought to have. The man was a stranger, one of the millions of innocent souls making their way through lives at street level, while Xiumin and his fellows descended from their towers only under cover of darkness. With one nod, he could have the most beautiful companionship, either male or female. His reputation and charm were usually enough to inspire all manner of diversions.

And yet he remained curious. He wished to have seen the expression on Jongdae’s face when his bag was returned to him. He wished to know what Jongdae did with his windfall, however meagre it may have been.

Curiosity was dangerous, in his business. Xiumin had always tried to tamp his own down. To move slowly until speed was a necessity. To plan, and plan contingencies, and plan contingencies again. But that smile on the student ID, contrasted with that tiny, scrawled note: “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” It made a curiosity that he couldn’t shake.

That ratty backpack, halfway ripped at one strap, frayed and dirty, containing half of a young man’s life.

Well, that was one thing he could fix, at least, with a few keystrokes, and the man would be none the wiser. Perhaps that would settle the matter.

 

“Gathering wool, boss?”

Xiumin had had many years to practice hiding his startle from Byun Baekhyun, whose dearest goal was apparently to scare his superior’s hair white.

“It’s nothing of consequence.”

“Uh huh.”

Baekhyun lounged in the chair across from Xiumin’s desk.

“Worried about Chaeyoung? That’s a problem easily solved. It’s always a mess when families change hand, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of people needing dirty money cleaned.”

Xiumin gazed at Baekhyun, who grinned and cocked his head as if he hadn’t just casually suggested murdering a girl barely out of her teens for no other reason than Xiumin finding her _inconvenient._ He never quailed from any job, however unpleasant. Baekhyun had saved his life more times than it was useful to count, and Xiumin trusted him implicitly – up until the point that Baekhyun threw in his lot with Suho. Or, all the available gods forbid, got ambitious for himself.

By this point, Baekhyun’s grin had faded to a pout.

“Boss?”

“Leave her be for now. As you say, YG isn’t our only client. Let her rise to her challenge, or fall. There’s no need to push her along.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

He tapped his fingers on the dark wood of his desk.

“It’s a good point, though. To branch out.”

Baekhyun grinned, wide and brilliant, as he did whenever praised.

“Have D.O. look into new avenues. Consider maybe – educational opportunities for achieving a pristine monetary outcome.”

Baekhyun snorted.

“You’re practically a poet, Boss.”

It was such a bald untruth that Xiumin smiled.

“Pretty sneaky idea, laundering through schools. D.O.’ll love that, if he can make it work.”

“Make it happen.”

“Anything for you, Boss.”

His standard farewell. It was usually comforting. But not always.


	5. Jongdae

Glorious, glorious time. Before dawn, Chanyeol shook him awake on the sofa.

“Go get in my bed, I’m heading out.”

Jongdae didn’t protest, and by the time he woke again, it was after nine, and he had nothing on his to-do list that involved leaving the house for the first time in. Um. Well, a really long time.

He got his paper done and turned in before 1 p.m. and used a bit of his remaining surprise cash to order enough black bean noodles for lunch and dinner. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d felt so little weight on his shoulders. He tried to figure out Chanyeol’s gaming system, but it had been so long since he played anything that he didn’t know what any of the games were anymore, except the karaoke one. That was pretty fun, even if he was by himself.

The doorbell woke him up from a late-afternoon nap. He was so woozy when he answered that he took the box from the delivery girl without protest. He had cut it open and was pulling out the packing foam before he was fully awake.

Inside the box was a backpack. Like a really, really nice backpack. Empty, it weighed so little he could barely feel it in his hand, a classy dark red that would make all his clothes look even worse by comparison. It had about fourteen different pockets, including a lined one on the inside that held a little lunch box with chopsticks that set into the lid.

Aside from his violin, it was by far the nicest thing he owned.

Wait.

No, there were his name and address on the box. But the receipt in the box was a gift receipt, with the sender left blank.

Who in the world?

He dialed his phone.

“Son! Is this your day off, finally?”

“Finally! Omma, did you send me this backpack?”

“A what? No, sweetheart, I’m sorry, I didn’t send you anything. Did you get an unexpected gift?”

Her conclusion was that he had a secret admirer, which was dumb, but what could you do? Moms.

“Oh, don’t you splutter at me, I’m only surprised my handsome son doesn’t have a whole handful of admirers.”

“Omma!”

It was nice to talk to her without faking good cheer, and to mean it when he told her not to send him anything.

“I’m good, really.”

“I’m sorry we can’t do more for you, Jongdae.”

“Come on, you have so much on your plate with Appa. You and hyung work so hard, I’m the one who should be doing more.”

“Jongdae. No. We all want you to be happy, sweetheart. You’re our light.”

“I’ll come visit as soon as I can, okay?”

“We’ll wait every minute for you.”

Chanyeol got home before Jongdae had time to get too maudlin about missing his family, worrying about his sick father, his tired mother and brother, and himself hundreds of kilometers away, struggling for some nebulous future as a music … something.

“I think your mom’s right, dude,” he said. “Definitely a secret admirer.”

“So you sent it.”

Chanyeol laughed, as loud as everything else he ever did.

“If I were trying to catch your eye, it’d be with food, I know you too well. Besides, that one time we made out second year was weird enough to put me off you forever.”

“Thanks a lot, asshole.”

“Aw, you love me. Platonically as hell.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Jongin at least could admire the mystery and the backpack without yanking Jongdae’s chain about it. After a celebratory few six-packs of beer, they carried the old backpack down to the trash bin and cheered its disposal until the granny in the first floor unit shouted at them to shut up.

Maybe things were finally looking up for him.


	6. Xiumin

With YG in flux, business slowed down – the momentum that had carried them after old sunbaenim’s death petered out, their new client leads were still in delicate stages. In the meantime, it was the actuaries and low-level negotiators who worked long days for a change, and Xiumin found himself at loose ends, for good and ill.

He had a weekend free, like any other worker in an office tower. Time left to his own devices.

To do what?

A day spent in his apartment was enough to give him a horror of enclosed space, despite the expensive views. His laundry and cleaning services left him with no upkeep to perform. Everything on television was loud and inane, aside from a cooking show whose down side was a vivid reminder of the fact that his refrigerator held only two mostly-full fifths of vodka and a jar of kimchi whose provenance he couldn't remember but that he suspected was nearly old enough to be declared an item of historical cultural importance.

This mixture of boredom and hunger were surely the combination that led to his ridiculous idea at 3 a.m. Sunday morning that it would be amusing to go back to the tea shop.

By dawn, the many ways in which this was a terrible idea had made themselves manifest: no benefit could come to Jongdae from Xiumin’s presence in his life. However difficult, his was a life of safety. Whereas Xiumin literally knew no one who wasn’t inherently dangerous.

And what benefit could come to himself? To allow a distraction into a life which distraction could be dangerous.

But – when was the last time he _wanted_ something?

Probably Jongdae would be disappointing anyway, and that would put an end to his curiosity.

Still, he found himself standing in his closet for long enough to be slightly embarrassing. So much of his clothing was intended to intimidate or show off. What did he even own that would look incognito? Normal.

He realized how very much time he spent at home padding around in suit pants and a singlet, like  –

He laughed.

Like a gangster.

 

The streets were full on Sunday afternoon, a comfort. Maybe his colors were more somber than were typical on the street, but he wasn’t too far afield from the crowds, with his snapback pulled low over his face and the collar of his black leather jacket turned up.

As he walked, he watched the crowds as he had earlier in the week, allowing himself to observe without having to calculate. It was a pleasant feeling: it cheered him into thinking that surely this would be a futile errand. Jongdae would be boring, or obnoxious. Or maybe even not working.

Maybe even not working.

This was a thought that should’ve occurred to him at some point since 3 a.m. That it hadn’t him took him smiling into the tea shop. It was, as remembered, bright and spare, with several customers chatting at tables but no one immediately evident behind the counter.

Xiumin removed his hat and ran his hand through his hair until it curled down over his face while he peered up at the menu board.

“What would you like?” a resonant voice called out.

Oh, damn. Kim Jongdae was most assuredly not disappointing on first glance.

He was thinner than his student ID picture, and his smile, despite being one of polite distance, was wide and charming in an angular, handsome face. Not a large man, but then, as Xiumin well knew, size was overrated.

He waited too long – the smile dimmed, that fine head tilted to the side, strong brows quizzical.

Xiumin shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anything about tea. What would you suggest?”

Real or no, the smile was delightful.

“Coffee drinker?”

Xiumin nodded.

“Then there’s no point in giving you something delicate. Have a seat, I’ll hook you up.”

Xiumin sat at the counter and watched: black apron wrapped tight around a slim waist, shirt sleeves rolled up over lightly freckled forearms, the careful movement of Jongdae's long-fingered hands as he selected a glass jar of tea, measured leaves into some sort of wide-mouthed vessel, and poured water over them.

Oh dear. This was likely to be a problem. Xiumin should’ve known better than to try to assuage his curiosity. At close distance, that smile was – affecting, and one lock of hair curled down over Jongdae’s forehead, begging to be tucked to the side.

“Watch this,” Jongdae said a couple of moments later, gesturing at the container. “This is my favorite part. See how the leaves are starting to fall?”

He leaned in, unafraid to be close, the line of his jaw making a perfect angle for the palm of one's hand, and that mouth made for smiling.

Jongdae watched the leaves fall. Xiumin watched Jongdae watch the leaves, and fell.

“One by one they go, at first. And then here, watch! See how the clump of them starts to tip a little? And there they all go. That’s how you know it’s perfect.”

He set the vessel over a mug, and the tea drained out of the device into it.

“I’m so busy all the time,” Jongdae murmured. “I like how this reminds me to just slow down and watch.”

“Beautiful,” Xiumin said, meaning the tea, but not only the tea.

It could also apply to the responding grin.

“It is, isn’t it? I hope you also think it tastes good.”

“It’s not bitter,” Xiumin said a moment later, surprised at the richness of the flavor, that slight soft note at the end, similar to the one he’d liked from his first visit.

“It shouldn’t be, unless you like it that way,” Jongdae said. “Some people do. Then you just leave it on the leaves longer. I personally don’t like it bitter, so I guess it’s good you agree.”

This smile was such trouble. Xiumin found himself returning it, and Jongdae blinked several times.

They were interrupted by customers at the register. Xiumin knew he should be grateful for the space to clear his head, and not resent their intrusion. He sipped, added a bit of sugar to his tea, and found he liked that even better. He watched Jongdae serve the other customers with a smile and a care that he flattered himself to be less than what he had received.

On one pass from tea jars to register, Jongdae plunked a white porcelain jug of milk in front of him, with – Xiumin barely let himself believe it – a wink. Xiumin added a bit of milk, and liked the tea more still. He saw the backpack he’d ordered tucked up under the counter in the back. It was obviously stuffed full. Jongdae had removed the youth chorus patch from his old bag and sewn it onto the front pocket of this new one.

Oh, it had been a terrible idea to come here. But Xiumin stayed, sipped at his cup. Tried not to make it obvious that he stared when Jongdae leaned over a booth, clearing dishes and wiping the table down.

And then they were alone.

“Another?”

Xiumin nodded, and the pleasure of watching Jongdae make him a cup of tea was as great the second time.

“I’ll leave you to watch the leaves, you know how it’s done,” Jongdae said.

Xiumin watched. He waited, and when the leaves dropped, he dutifully drained the tea into his mug. It tasted just as nice as the first cup, to his very great surprise.

Jongdae set a notebook down on the counter across from him.

“Do you mind? I usually study when we’re not busy, but I don’t want to be rude.”

“Of course not. I’m not paying enough for this tea to expect you to entertain me.”

Jongdae grinned.

“You’d be amazed how many people expect otherwise.”

He wouldn’t. He had worked his ass off – and done some terrible things – for people who expected to be catered to, until he finally reached the point of being one of them. But he had been careful never to forget what it was like to feel as if one had no choice but to flatter.

Xiumin shook his hair down over his face as if thinking, watching Jongdae through his lashes as the man studied, moving his lips silently sometimes, others making a note in the margin of the page. He didn’t look like the person who had written of his despair in small letters. But then, of anyone, Xiumin would understand what it was like to wear a mask.

The desire to know what lay under Jongdae’s mask was sudden, visceral. Or maybe it was plain desire.

“I like this,” he said, in lieu of smashing his mug and climbing over the counter to bear Jongdae down to the floor and kiss that mouth until it was red. “What is it?”

Jongdae shook his study out of his brain.

“Irish breakfast,” he said, then covered his mouth, his eyes wide, and Xiumin had to check himself all over again. “Oh no, I hope you’re not sensitive to caffeine? I should’ve asked.”

It was Xiumin’s turn to blink.

“I am not,” he said. “Sensitive.”

“Oh, whew, because that stuff’s full of it. Any of the breakfast teas are. I don’t know why they call it Irish, since it comes from India, but I like that nice malty note it has at the finish. And I like the idea of sitting in one tiny country drinking tea named after another tiny country halfway around the world.”

He was charming. Xiumin should never have come here. This had been a terrible idea.

“I should go,” he said.

“Oh!” Jondae said, and Xiumin firmly told himself not to read that facial expression as disappointment. “Did you want a cup to go, or anything?”

“No. Thank you. This has been lovely, though. I appreciate it.”

“No problem!”

Xiumin wadded up a twenty thousand won bill for the tip jar and walked out as fast as he could manage without actually running.

He must absolutely never come back to this place.


	7. Jongdae

Up until the guy left, Jongdae thought it was another example of his weird new good luck that a hunk of total gorgeousness showed up during the slow part of the day and hung around to flirt with him.

At least, he thought the guy had been flirting with him. Maybe it was wishful thinking on Jongdae’s part, based on how incredible-looking the guy was, with eyes as pretty as a cat’s, hair that curled around his face and drew attention to a truly unfairly muscular neck that hinted strongly that his light-footed swagger was the walk of a man with some very interesting contours under his soft grey sweater and jeans.

The guy had stared, and asked questions in a husky, sexy voice. And then he’d smiled, and it transformed him from danger dude to cutie, and if Jongdae were half as smart as everybody accused him of being, he’d have asked for the guy’s number right that instant.

Too bad.

The guy hadn’t even minded when he had gone off on one of his dumb tea rants. For a minute there, Jongdae had wondered whether they were soulmates or something. But then he’d just up and left, like maybe he realized that Jongdae was actually a giant nerd with poor future prospects who could currently only rub two won together because some stranger had randomly given him a bunch of money.

He really had thought they’d been flirting.

Oh well. He had that exam to study for.

 

He aced it, of course. Studying on a full stomach and the high of several good days in a row was like magic for committing to memory the use of motif and melody in pre-Romantic concert music.

“It’s so nice to hear you singing again,” Chanyeol said while they combined forces to turn the contents of their refrigerator into something passably edible.

“Did I stop?”

Chanyeol put down his knife and turned to face Jongdae, his expression soft.

“Dude, yeah. It’s been months and months,” he said quietly.

Jongdae felt small in the face of this thought, with a lump in his throat.

“I didn’t notice.”

Chanyeol folded him up in a tight hug.

“Aw, Dae. Of course you didn’t. You’ve been too busy worrying and working too hard. I’m just really, really happy to see you getting a little bit of a break.”

Jongdae wrapped his arms around Chan’s bony torso and squeezed.

“I wouldn’t make it without you guys.”

“That’s true,” Chanyeol said, with laughter in his voice. “We’re amazing.”

Jongdae pinched him for that.

Over dinner, he told Chan and Nini about the hot guy, knowing they’d rib him about it mercilessly and enjoying every second of it.

“Oh no, what if it was your one chance at true love!” Chan shouted.

“Like you believe in true love.”

“Chanyeol,” Jongin said, “believes in truly loving as many people as possible.”

“And by ‘loving,’ he means fucking,” Jongdae said.

“There’s a lot of me to go around! I like to be generous with myself.”

“You like to keep condom manufacturers in business.”

“I’m a committed capitalist.”

“We’re hilarious,” Jongin said.

It was a really, really good day, even if he hadn’t gotten the hot guy’s phone number.


	8. Xiumin

Xiumin dreamed of Jongdae. For years, he hadn’t remembered his dreams, but now he dreamed of bright rooms and tea leaves. Or he dreamed of dark rooms and those narrow fingers digging into his own hips, or wrapped tight around his cock. Dreamed of that face under him, contorted in pleasure.

Worse was the way his thoughts turned to the man even when he was awake: how he would look in blue. Whether he preferred the mountains or the sea. Whether he liked kissing men.

In the old days, when Xiumin had been lower down in the organization, there had never been time to think like this. Even on security detail or ambushes, when there was by necessity time to wait quietly, there was always something that must be watched, equipment to be checked. Never this ridiculous distraction.

“Look, I know it’s boring,” Suho said, “but you’re the one who insists on knowing everything at all times.”

Xiumin shook his head.

“I apologize. Your work is always excellent, I don’t mean –“

Suno rolled his eyes.

“I’m not looking for you to pat me on the head, Xiumin. I know you want to see all the numbers so you can keep the big picture in your head. I’m saying that you are obviously not _paying attention._ ”

“Sorry.”

“Well, the numbers aren't actually that different from usual, other than YG keeping their import levels low while they figure themselves out. If they don't watch it, half their clients are going to get comfortable with that new group of kids.”

"And how are we coming along with them? Heavy Hitters, is that right?"

"Big Hit. Still working our way around with them. Very insular little setup, but early talks are friendly."

Suho grinned.

"They're not ready for you yet."

"You always make me sound so terrifying," Xiumin said.

"The best flattery is always based on truth."

Ridiculous. He hadn't had to do anything scary in years. Or _a_ year, thereabouts. Xiumin focused on the tablet in front of him, the columns Suho considered most important helpfully highlighted in a soothing light green, as usual.

“I hate it when things slow down,” he said.

“Right? I always worry that we’ll wake up one morning and the entire peninsula will have turned over a new leaf of anti-corruption and we’ll be out of business forever.”

Xiumin processed this information. He had always assumed that Suho looked perpetually worried because his face naturally fell that way, not because it was actually true.

“I imagine that’s incredibly unlikely,” he said finally.

Suho grinned.

“I know. Can’t help thinking it, though.”

Suho shrugged. Like Xiumin, he was a small, quiet man not much given to smiling. His tidiness had an edge to it, and he was absolutely brutal in a fight. As long as he kept his ambition in check, Xiumin trusted him as much as he trusted anyone other than Baekhyun. But, he realized, he knew next to nothing about the man. What did he do on his days off? Did he also stalk around an impersonal apartment in half his work clothes?

“Take advantage of the quiet, I suppose," Xiumin said. "It never lasts."

 

Xiumin wandered – first through the office building, where he was surprised by how few faces he recognized, and how many people they employed. This had all been numbers in his head, before: Suho’s plan to expand the visible face of Exportationes Orientales with an actual legal import-export business, including employees who thought they worked for such and flew back and forth to Europe to write cute little contracts to exchange dolls dressed in hanbok with plush burros, or stationery with cheese on it, or some such nonsense.

They all thought Suho was the CEO, so they stared at Xiumin curiously, not one of them daring to approach him other than the receptionist, who asked whether he was lost. Truly amusing.

He took Baekhyun and wandered the various businesses that were the heart of their operation. But not until after he endured a lecture and a shopping trip.

“Boss. Come on. You show up at a laundromat in Jongno in an Armani suit, you’re going to look like an asshole.”

“I thought I was an asshole.”

Baekhyun grinned.

“You’re my favorite asshole – because you’re only an asshole to people who _deserve_ it.”

Xiumin snorted. But it was also a pertinent point, so he let Baekhyun drag him out shopping.

It was awful. Xiumin was the most powerful fixer in the biggest money-laundering syndicate in the nation, and he was bullied into emerging from dressing rooms for the opinion of his own knifeman while wearing some of the most ridiculous clothes available for sale.

“They’re too tight.”

“Yeah, they’re too tight for wandering around in the slums,” Baekhyun said. “But wear those things to a club and you can sit back and watch ‘em fight over you.”

He waggled his eyebrows.

“Can’t promise I won’t make sure to win.”

“Shut up, Baekhyun.”

But back in the dressing room, in the mirror, Xiumin looked at how the dark jeans hugged the curve of his ass, wondered whether Jongdae would notice if he wore them, felt his face heat.

He bought them, despite Baekhyun’s smirk. He bought more casual clothing than he’d wear in a year, unless he went back to patrolling the streets to maintain discipline. Or – started dating. Not necessarily Jongdae. But possibly Jongdae. As unlikely as that idea was.

He and Baekhyun poked their heads in the various small-time businesses, nodding to countless grey-faced, bowing men and women, all of whom were either terrified, thrilled, or both to be examined by the higher-ups. Strip clubs were the worst. Xiumin might go so far as to admit (in secret) that he actually liked Baekhyun, but the man never shut up, especially when he thought he might be able to embarrass his hearer, so each visit to a strip club was a nonstop litany of crude commentary that made Xiumin's ears physically tired. The bars were best: Xiumin would buy Baekhyun a drink and watch him flirt gossip out of bartenders on every topic under the sun. Unfortunately, and surprisingly for anyone in his line of business, Baekhyun had the alcohol tolerance of an underfed eight-year-old, so by the time Xiumin put him into a taxi just after sunset, he was doing an admirable impression of a chatty cephalopod.

“Nooo, boss. You bought ass jeans. We need to go to a cluuuuuuub. Home is boring, come ooooonnnn!”

He extracted himself from Baekyun’s nine limbs and poured him into the cab. A club sounded awful: minimal exits, distracting noise, crowds of bodies pressed in close.

Xiumin ignored the vivid mental image of Jongdae grinding against him, alcohol thrumming through his veins, music rattling in his chest, sweat, and promise. He shook himself.

Back home, he spread his purchases around on the floor to cut the tags off and organize them. It had been a good day. Distracting, but useful. There were a few business owners – one club owner, a laundromat owner, and the manager at a porridge restaurant, of all places – who seemed hungry for advancement, in the slippery way of those whose moral compass had no true north. Promising.

His refrigerator remained empty. It was the easiest thing in the world to order three pizzas instead of one and give the shop two addresses.


	9. Jongdae

His luck had definitely turned. Jongdae aced his exam, wrote a paper that he was pretty sure verged on genius, and had not one customer curse at him at either workplace for four days straight. It was a miracle.

And then, on Thursday night, sitting around with his roommates listening to Chanyeol rattle on about how he’d remix the songs on various music shows, a couple of free pizzas showed up with his name on them.

“If you decide not to go for your secret admirer, can I have them?” Chanyeol asked.

“Oh no,” Nini said. “If there’s food involved, we’re going to fight, and you could never fight me.”

Chanyeol looked over his slice of pizza, picked off the green peppers, and set them on Nini’s slice.

“That’s true,” he said. “It would be like sinning against heaven to harm that face.”

Jongin grinned, and Jongdae threw a pillow at him, just because it was so gross.

"How are you going to find out who's sending you this stuff?" Jongin asked.

"I'm not sure I want to," Jongdae said, to his own surprise.

"Makes sense," Chanyeol said. "The mystery makes it more _romantic._ "

Jongdae made a face at him, but – yeah.

They played a racing game on Chanyeol's console, and Jongdae kicked their butts at the karaoke game. He was working just as hard, and he was just as broke, but everything just _felt_ better. Felt easier to bear. Having a secret fairy guardian who sent pizzas and backpacks was like living in a book – he felt shy about it, in a way that was also a thrill high in his chest, as if he were a little short of breath. It would definitely stop any minute. Right? And be a good story he could tell over beers in the future.

In the meantime, he tried to just ride the swell of good feeling and make it last as long as possible. Another low period was always coming along.

The changing of the season meant extra hours and tons of extra work at Top Fashion, putting all the summer stuff on sale and unpacking, steaming, and hanging all the winter clothes. Changing the displays. The extra hours were welcome, but by the time Jongdae got to his Sunday shift at Cuppa, he felt like he was going to have to tape his eyelids open to stay awake.

It was rainy, and chilly enough that the few customers who braved the streets settled in to order whole teapots to huddle over until they dried out. Usually Jongdae liked days like this, because they were so cozy, but he was constantly having to duck under the counter or behind the bakery cases to hide his yawns. He was by himself until four, until Key arrived. Key would at least talk to him and keep him awake.

The slight increase in traffic couldn't be defined as a lunch "rush," but once it was over, Jongdae was just reaching desperation levels of sleepy when the hot guy walked in.

Talk about a way to wake a person up.

And if anything, he looked even more amazing the second time around, and Jongdae was _relatively_ sure that wasn't just because he had spent more than a few free moments over the course of the past week daydreaming about the man.

When the hot guy pulled the slouchy hat off his head and shook out his hair, he looked straight at Jongdae and smiled, his cheeks going round. Jongdae lost all feeling in his feet. It was possible that he briefly floated.

"Hey, you came back," he said, sounding like an idiot.

Except the guy's smile widened, and he tilted his head to one side.

"I thought I could use another reminder to slow down and watch," he said, and Jongdae had definitely not made up that little growl in the background of his voice.

The man blinked at him slowly, still smiling, and if he wasn't flirting, Jongdae would eat his new backpack. He felt his face go red.

"Well," he said, "I'm happy to help out with that."

Why did he have to sound like such a dumbass?

The guy's eyebrows shot upward, and he pursed his lips, but his pretty eyes stayed crinkled up as he took the same seat at the counter. So maybe he didn't mind Jongdae sounding like an awkward dweeb.

“Would you, um, like the same tea or something new?”

“Surprise me,” the man said.

Jongdae had never actually heard that phrase sound so suggestive in real life before. He thought it was something that only happened in dramas. Not that it added intense pressure to choosing the right tea or anything.

And when he turned around, he was _certain_ that the way the guy’s eyes lifted meant the guy had been checking out his ass. Awesome.

“This looks different,” the man murmured, so that Jongdae leaned in to listen more closely over the steeping mug.

 “It’s just a different way to process the leaves,” Jongdae said, and then blushed, and stopped before he could launch into a dumb lecture.

“This one gets a timer instead.”

He set a small timer shaped like a koala with a clock in its belly, set for 3 minutes, on the counter.

“Ah,” hot guy said.

He folded his hands together and made his expression blank.

“A defined period of anticipation,” he said. “How efficient.”

For a moment, Jongdae stared, confused, except that the man’s eyes were still crinkled up. He looked so adorable that Jongdae figured his only choices were to coo or to laugh. He chose laughter. Seemed less weird.

Problem was, he was so tired, and so flustered, and the man was so, so cute, that once Jongdae started laughing, he couldn’t stop.

Instead of storming out, or shouting, the guy looked surprised briefly, then grinned a broad, gummy smile, put his chin in his hand, still grinning, and waited for Jongdae to catch his breath.

“It really wasn’t that funny,” he said when Jongdae stopped wheezing and wiped his eyes.

Jongdae shook his head.

“I am so sorry, that was really rude.”

“Oh no, it was highly gratifying,” the man said.

He held out one hand.

“I’m Kim – Minseok?” he said.

Jongdae grinned at the hesitation.

“You sure about that?”

The guy – Minseok – nodded.

“Kim Jongdae,” he said.

Minseok’s hand was cool, with a grasp that was strong without any kind of squeezy, dominating dude BS. Minseok blinked slowly at him, and Jongdae knew he was staring. He probably looked like an idiot.

The timer went off, and they both startled. Jongdae felt his face got hot yet again.

Minseok calmly reached for the infuser and set it on top of his mug, as if the contact hadn’t deprived him of his brain function.

“Jongdae,” he said as he reached for the spoon and the sugar, still not looking up.

Jongdae had never liked the sound of his own name better than in that quiet, burred voice.

“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

“I work until six-thirty,” Jongdae said, demonstrating exactly none of the intelligence people always accused him of.

Wonderful.

But Minseok pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.

“Is that a no?”

“No!”

Great, now he sounded like a complete dork.

“Oh, good,” Minseok said. “Shall I pick you up here, then?”

“Um. Yeah. That sounds. Great.”

The way Minseok smiled at him – as if _he_ were actually going to be the dinner – made Jongdae so flustered that he could barely speak two more words the whole time Minseok sat in front of him.

Not a great start.


	10. Xiumin

In the intervening hours before six-thirty, Xiumin was aware of choice as an irritant nagging at him, like grit in an oyster: he could focus on how utterly enchanting Jongdae was or on the incomprehensible fact that he had told the man his _actual name._

Xiumin knew he ought to take that for a danger sign and disappear into his customary darkness. Simply fail to show up at the tea shop at six-thirty and fade out of Kim Jongdae’s life before he could be properly in it.

The thing was, he didn’t _want_ to. He wanted to hear that laugh again. Wanted to push back the curl falling over Jongdae’s forehead. Wanted to take him to dinner. To bed.

Four hours was a long time to kill when one had no particular hobbies or interests and was impatient for time to pass. Xiumin wandered, window shopped. Scowled at every clock he saw, and their failure to show time passing with adequate rapidity.

Around five o’clock, he realized that none of the restaurants he frequented were appropriate for (a) casual wear, (b) casual conversation, or (c) keeping Jongdae safely away from Seoul’s high-powered low-life. A bench under a tree and a long session with his phone produced a few promising options and took up enough time that, if he walked slowly, he’d make it back to the tea shop with only a few moments to spare.

He waited a few meters back from the door, standing partially behind a large potted tree. Maybe it was mean, but Xiumin felt tight in his chest to see how Jongdae rushed out the door of the tea shop, looking from side to side. Then the smile on his face falling.

Oh, that wouldn’t do, no matter how much it made Xiumin’s breath hitch to see it.

Xiumin emerged from behind the tree, purposely strolling at an easy pace, and had the very great pleasure of watching Jongdae turn again, see him, and smile as if there was nothing he’d rather see on the face of the earth. It was almost enough to make Xiumin trip over his own feet.

“Hi, hyung,” Jongdae said when he was close.

And then Xiumin did falter, just for one step, feeling his own mouth widen in response to Jongdae’s grin.

“Jongdae,” he said, and watched the man’s cheeks go pink.

“I guess I’m a dummy,” Jongdae said. “I kept thinking you wouldn’t show up.”

Maybe that would’ve been best for everyone. However.

“I suppose you don’t know me well enough yet, to know that I’m a man of my word,” he said, making his face solemn.

And Jongdae, being adorable, widened his eyes and raised his hands, spluttering a protest before Xiumin smiled.

“Hyung,” Jongdae said, accusation in his voice.

Xiumin barely recognized himself as this person who would tease a complete stranger, just to make him blush. This was what came of giving out his real name.

“What sounds good? Sushi? Pork belly? Or this little Western fusion place around the corner?”

How was this the same person who had seemed so despairing in his notebook? It was as if Jongdae’s face naturally fell into a smile.

“I know that fusion place. It looks really cute. I’ve been wanting to go there.”

“Let’s try it.”

“Are you sure? I think it’s kind of pricy.”

Xiumin tilted his head, and Jongdae laughed under his breath.

“Right, sorry. Man of your word. Got it.”

It wasn’t like Baekyun teasing him – there was no edge to this. Just lightness. A hint of laughter in Jongdae’s voice. Xiumin barely felt the pavement under his feet.

The walk was a little awkward. They weren’t close enough to hold hands, but Xiumin kept thinking about it, Jongdae’s arm hanging down just centimeters away from his own. All the small talk he was accustomed to involved business. What was he to say? Was it strange that they walked without speaking? Was it already weird, before it had even begun?

But Jongdae grinned at him when he held open the door of the restaurant.

Inside, it was even prettier than the outside promised: quiet, with classical music playing in the background and low tables covered in white tablecloths. The girl at the host stand pursed her lips at them before she nodded her head and led them to a table in one corner. Every other occupied table had one man and one woman at it.

Xiumin wondered whether things were a little less … permissive … in the daylight world.

If Jongdae noticed, he didn’t show it, looking around with obvious pleasure at the décor: old-fashioned posters for operas, maps of Europe, pictures of old-looking stone houses nestled into green hills. Their table had tiny white candle in a glass jar on it.

“What a sweet little place,” Jongdae said when they were seated.

Xiumin watched him crane his neck to take in the décor. Jongdae’s shirt was rumpled from his work day, and there were shadows under his eyes. Xiumin wanted to gather him up, stand between him in the world, until those shadows went away.

“I don’t know anything about wine,” Jongdae said, looking over the menu.

Xiumin shook his head.

“I do, a little,” he said.

Chiefly the kinds of champagnes so expensive that they made his dates gape, but that was neither appropriate to the situation nor available. He ordered what he thought would be a drinkable white and hoped for the best. He felt Jongdae’s gaze on him as if it held weight while he ordered.

“So,” Jongdae said, planting his chin in his hand when the server stepped away, “you know what I do – serve tea and muffins all day.”

The sever returned, not looking at either of them as he opened the bottle, giving the cork to Xiumin, who touched the end cursorily and nodded. Such a relief to have something to do with his hands and his face, once the glass was filled.

“Yes,” he said, and disregarded everything else he knew.

Because surely it would make things awkward, if Jongdae knew how Xiumin had violated his privacy, had sent him gifts like some sort of patron.

“But what were you studying, the first time I visited?”

Jongdae’s smile was too broad and too bright to withstand. Xiumin kept feeling his own mouth curve in response.

“Music,” Jongdae said. “Grad school.”

“Music,” Xiumin said.

“Much less glamorous than it sounds,” Jongdae said. “Just imagine me on a trajectory toward elementary school music teacher. That’s my most realistic outcome, at the moment. I even did my undergrad in education, just to be on the safe side.”

The mental image was adorable. Xiumin grinned. And he didn’t _think_ he imagined the way Jongdae blinked rapidly and heaved a sigh.

“What about you?” he asked. “What do you do?”

This was an old story, though Xiumin hadn’t had to bring it out in a long time.

“I’m an actuary,” he said.

“A what?”

It was the standard answer.

“Risk assessment,” Xiumin said.

“Oh, like for insurance?”

“Finance, but similar,” Xiumin said.

Jongdae sipped his wine, eyes narrowed above his glass.

“Is that – interesting?”

At the skepticism in Jongdae’s tone, Xiumin had to laugh, even if it was silently, with his hand held over his mouth. Jongdae sat back in his chair as if satisfied.

“From that, I’m going to assume that it’s incredibly boring,” he said, still grinning.

Baekhyun was always teasing him, always trying to get Xiumin to break – to shout, maybe even to throw a punch. Jongdae’s teasing was a challenge, too, surely.

“I enjoy puzzles,” Xiumin said.

“You mean, jigsaw puzzles? Crossword puzzles?”

“Well, yes. But any kind, really. I like solving problems. And I enjoy the challenge of negotiation.”

“I see,” Jongdae said. “So you’re saying I should play hard to get.”

Then he did the most endearing thing: he widened his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and said “oh whyyy did I say that? Ugh, Jongdae, you moron.”

Xiumin found himself laughing again.

“I can’t look at you when I’m talking. You’re too cute, it makes me say stupid things,” Jongdae groaned to the tabletop.

It was so different from the dance of innuendo and power struggles that Xiumin was used to. And no one had dared call him “cute” since – maybe middle school? And back then he had been chubby.

“You’re delightful,” he said.

Jongdae lifted his head and frowned over, skeptical. Xiumin grinned, and they were saved by the server arriving to take their orders.

Things were easier, after that, as if they had worked past awkwardness. Over a salad of tomatoes and a mild, soft cheese, Xiumin spun a small tale about risk assessment that was mostly true in generalities (if wholly untrue in the particulars), about his enjoyment of working through a maze of illegality to find a path toward legitimacy.

“That sounds incredibly complicated,” Jongdae said. “Here, you have to try this pasta, it’s amazing.”

Xiumin handed his plate over.

“Only if you try this steak.”

The pasta was delicious, light and delicate, but it was not nearly as delicious as the way Jongdae’s eyes fluttered when he put the bite of steak in his mouth. Xiumin put his fork down, in case his hand started to shake.

“Oh my god,” Jongdae said in a low voice that spoke straight to Xiumin’s cock.

“It is rather good,” he said.

“I don’t get to eat like this very often,” Jongdae said, face flushed and eyes dropped, as if he were embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Oh. Um. For. I’m not sure?”

Xiumin hardly knew what to do with such honesty. With earnestness. It was as appealing as the first winter snow.

“I attend a great many business dinners,” he said when Jongdae had shifted in his chair and started to look mortified.

“They’re always at restaurants that have a year-long waiting list, with European chefs and rivers of imported liquor. My associates would scoff at this place, at a simple steak on a plain white dish.”

Jongdae frowned a little.

“But none of them ever seem to _enjoy_ anything about these dinners - not the food, not the wine, especially not the company.”

He refilled each of their wine glasses.

“This is better. To enjoy this. That you enjoy it.”

Jongdae gazed at him, then grinned wide.

“Aish! You’re a smooth talker when you get going.”

Xiumin shrugged.

“That doesn’t make it any less true.”

He waved when Jongdae tried to pass the plate back over.

“Keep it for a bit. I’m very happy with the trade.”

“You sounded excited when you talked about your job earlier,” Jongdae said. “Then all that stuff about the dinners made it sound like you hate it.”

It was briefly uncomfortable to be the object of consideration. But Jongdae was interested not because of what Xiumin could do for him, or from fear. Pure, friendly curiosity was an unaccustomed reaction.

“A little of both,” he said finally. “Like any other profession. Surely you must feel the same way about school.”

Jongdae tilted his head at his plate, as if communicating with it, then handed it back in trade so Xiumin could finish the steak.

“I don’t, actually,” he said. “I really do just love it. I love my classes, I like my classmates. My professors are great. I mean, I guess it’s annoying if I have to do a group project with somebody who’s not great at deadlines, but I’m mostly past that part. I even like writing papers, because it means I get to lie around on the floor and think about music in the nerdiest possible way. I can’t wait for my thesis semester in the spring, because that’s nothing but nerding out and writing.”

He shrugged.

“The only stressful part is the money part and that’s.”

He stopped, flushed.

“I mean. It is what it is.”

As Xiumin well knew but could hardly say. Perhaps, if things progressed, there would be something he could to do alleviate that.


	11. Jongdae

Was it a good date?

Jongdae thought it was going well. Minseok hadn’t laughed at him when he moaned over that amazing steak like he was freaking having sex with it. His little speech afterward was so sweet and earnest. And a little weird – whatever company Minseok did “risk assessment” for must be a huge one, and he must be pretty high up.

But maybe he meant what he said, that this was better. He didn’t smile a lot, but Minseok’s eyes rarely seemed to be looking anywhere but his face, any time he looked up. And Minseok let him ramble about school, chin resting in one hand and the other playing with the stem of his wine glass in a way that Jongdae tried hard to ignore or he’d lose his train of thought.

“What do you think of this dessert sampler? Coffee?”

“Yes to both,” Jongdae said.

He stopped questioning how things were going when the dessert arrived. Minseok looked over the five tiny items, dipped a spoon into one, and held it out across the table.

Jongdae felt his face go hot, and he couldn’t help glancing around. But the restaurant was half-empty by this hour, and the other tables were busy with their own concerns. He leaned forward, and of course he got chocolate on his lip, and of course he had to lick it off, and then the chocolate and raspberry flavor registered, it was so good that he made a sound in the back of his throat.

Minseok stared at him with the barest smile on his face, as if he himself were the real dessert.

Oh boy. This guy.

At the rate he was going, Jongdae was either going to faint or burst into flames.

At least if he fainted, Minseok might try to give him mouth to mouth.

He really, really hoped that at some time in the near future Minseok was going to give him some mouth to mouth.

“Good?” Minseok asked, half an octave lower than his usual speaking voice.

Jongdae cleared his throat.

“Uh. Yes. Really good.”

Minseok grinned and sat back in his chair, and they ate the rest of the desserts like grown-up, normal people who maybe weren’t planning on getting naked together at the first available opportunity.

Jongdae wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. It was definitely fun, though, and the desserts were definitely delicious.

“Oof, I ate too much,” Minseok said when the check had been taken away, patting a nonexistent tummy. “Feel like a walk?”

Anything to keep it going. Yes.

“Yes.”

He felt awkward again, outside on the sidewalk, among all the other people out on dates, the early drunks, and the lights. The exhaustion of his long day was creeping up on him, and a large, rich meal hadn't helped.

Minseok seemed content to simply walk, their hands occasionally brushing – just often enough to not be coincidence, though Minseok never took his hand. It was crazy-making. And he was so tired, something even more awkward than usual would probably come out of his mouth all of a sudden. Surely at that point, Minseok would take one look at him, bolt for a taxi, and never be seen again.

"What are you thinking about so hard?" Minseok asked, scaring Jongdae half out of his skin.

It was like being stared at by a large predator, which was weird, because Jongdae was a couple of centimeters taller. But Minseok's attention seemed to blot everything else out.

He arched one eyebrow, and Jongdae realized that he had left a question hanging in the air.

"Oh! Uh. I just."

He rubbed the back of his neck, just for something to do with his hands.

"It's been a long time since I was on a date," he said finally. "I forgot how you have to have your list of basic questions drawn up, so you won't forget them when the silences get too long and you end up looking like a major dork."

Minseok laughed, his pretty eyes scrunched up and his gums showing. He hung onto Jongdae's arm and bent over, holding his stomach. He was so cute, Jongdae thought he might actually die.

"Please," Minseok said when he caught his breath. "Please tell me that you have made an actual written list of questions for a date."

Jongdae scowled.

"Maybe."

"You're delightful," Minseok said, and slung his arm around Jongdae's shoulders. Beethoven's Ode to Joy broke out in Jongdae's brain.

"That's very organized. Did you carry it with you?"

"No way, what if she found it? That would've been way too embarrassing."

Minseok stopped and turned his head slowly. Their faces were so close together. Jongdae could smell his cologne – something piney and spicy.

"'She'?" Minseok asked, his tone very, very careful.

Oh. Jeez.

"Well, you know," Jongdae said. "It took me a little while to figure out where my preferences lay."

Up close, Minseok's smile was even more distracting, even when it was a small, close-lipped one.

"Ah, I do understand," he said.

They walked several steps, still linked by Minseok's arm, their strides matching easily.

"I'm not sure I have a true preference in general," Minseok said quietly. "At the moment, however, I find my specific preference quite strong indeed."

Jongdae was sure Minseok heard the stuttering little breath he took.

Oof, this guy was either going to be really great or really big trouble.

"Let's drink," Minseok said. "And maybe you can dredge up some of those first date questions. But I warn you I'm very mysterious and probably won't answer half of them."

The closeness made Jongdae giddy enough to say, "I thought I was the one supposed to be playing hard to get?"

By way of an answer, Minseok tightened his arm until Jongdae squeaked “hyung!”

After that, Jongdae let himself enjoy just walking, the warmth and pressure of Minseok’s arm, and tried not to worry. It wasn’t until they passed the third one that Minseok found a snack tent meeting his silent qualifications. But they took seats near the side, a little farther away from the heaters than Jongdae would’ve liked.

“Beer or soju?”

“Soju,” Jongdae said. “Beer sounds too heavy.”

“I agree.”

‘I thought you said you were full!” Jongdae laughed after Minseok had ordered.

Minseok shrugged.

“I want something spicy.”

“Yeah. It was so good, but I’m dying for some kimchi.”

The ajusshi running the stand brought kimchi to them – cabbage and radish – along with their soju and the chicken gizzards.

Jongdae poured for Minseok, watched him stuff an entire skewer of gizzards in his mouth, down his glass, and sigh.

He had said he liked puzzles, but he was one himself: one minute so smooth and daunting, the next minute nothing but cute.

He was like a new piece of music – just by looking, Jongdae had a feel for the surface. He could tell that Minseok would stand up to repetition. There was depth there, and enough complexity that there would be surprises.

Not that he wanted just to talk. Jongdae had never been good at making the first move: he was too paranoid about overstepping, or misreading signals, and pissing somebody off. When he and Chanyeol had made out in college, it had been the culmination of about 2 months of flirting, until Chanyeol had turned up at his door with five bottles of soju, stating flat out that they were going to start kissing after the second one.

As far as he could remember, Jongdae had said, “uh.”

“Look, Dae. You’re either not into me or so oblivious that it’s pathetic, and I’m tired of trying to figure out which one it is,” Chan had said.

The kissing hadn’t been _bad,_ but everyone was still wearing their pants by the end of it, and they giggled through the last three bottles instead of taking things any further.

He didn’t think it would be like that with Minseok.

God, he wanted to kiss Minseok so much. On one hand, he had put his arm around Jongdae’s neck while they were walking. But otherwise.

It was hard to tell.

And if he thought about it too much, that wasn’t going to be the only thing that was hard.


	12. Xiumin

Xiumin rather doubted that Jongdae knew how obvious he was, staring with heat in his eyes and his hand gripped tight around his glass. Under many other circumstances, Xiumin would take advantage of that. Under many other circumstances, they would already be behind a locked door, one of them three fingers into the other.

Those sorts of circumstances never repeated more than twice. Xiumin found himself – not hesitant, exactly. Careful. He didn’t want to only fuck Jongdae. He wanted those first-date questions. And the second-date ones. He wanted to risk it, to know this man.

“All right, go ahead,” he said, waving his hand.

It was so gratifying, the way he put Jongdae off-balance. Xiumin would have to watch himself, not to let that satisfaction go too far.

“Eh?”

Xiumin poured Jongdae another glass.

“Your first-date questions. But you have to answer every one you ask.”

Jongdae very obviously used the shot to regain his composure, then tilted his head.

“How old are you?” Jongdae asked.

“Thirty-one.”

“Oh! Where’d you do your military service?”

“In the navy. At the very bottom of the ladder, from beginning to end.”

Of course, he’d been busy on the side, making a number of contacts on ship as well as in port that served him well to this day.

Jongdae nodded.

“I was in the Army choir. Not the first-string. But still, pretty cushy.”

Xiumin reminded himself of all he was not supposed to know.

“Aren’t you a little young to have completed your service?”

Jongdae’s eyes dropped.

“I guess,” he said. “I went in right after undergrad. It seemed like it would be easier to get it over with.”

There was a story there, and an unhappy one. Perhaps not first date material.

“So how old are you, then?”

“Twenty-six.”

Xiumin hummed, then tapped his empty glass with one finger, and grinned at Jongdae’s scowl before he filled it, with a sarcastic “hyung.”

Jongdae was adorable even when rolling his eyes.

“Favorite season?”

“Winter,” Xiumin said.

“Really?”

“I love the cold. The more snow the better.”

Jongdae shuddered, but Xiumin entertained a brief image of him in a bulky sweater by a fireplace, snow outside and lots of uninterrupted time.

“I like autumn,” Jongdae said, his cheeks red as if he had read Xiumin’s mind.

“Getting to your favorite time of year, then.”

Jongdae nodded.

“It’s. Uh. My birthday’s in a few weeks. The twenty-first.”

Xiumin tucked that away where he would remember it.

“Ah. Mine’s in March.”

Xiumin tried to identify the last time he had been so amused, watching Jongdae fail to keep up with his liquor consumption while answering innocuous questions. They covered one another’s favorite colors, home towns, baseball teams, and the like.

The pause before each of Jongdae’s responses increased steadily, and the arm propping up his head had acquired a pronounced angle. He answered Xiumin’s question about his second job with closed eyes, and drifted off in the middle of a sentence about mannequins.

Xiumin waited, sipping slowly at his glass, but it seemed that their date had come to an end. Having spent an evening with the man, Xiumin could imagine that if he knocked over a soju bottle or shoved Jondgae’s elbow, Jongdae would wake with a startle and a hundred loud apologies.

Instead he did what he had been itching to do since his first visit to the tea shop and reached over to gently push the curl over Jongdae’s forehead to one side. Jongdae’s nose wrinkled, and he shook his head, blinking blearily into a semblance of waking. He yawned.

“Aw, hyung, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, I didn’t mean – I mean, I think I dozed off for a second, it was so rude. I’m having a really good time, I swear.”

“Jongdae,” Xiumin said, and Jongdae settled.

“It’s all right. You can make it up to me next time.”

Jongdae smiled, and Xiumin’s breath caught.

“There’s going to be a next time?”

It was Xiumin’s turn to smile.

“Of course there will, don’t be silly,” he said.

“Hyung,” Jondgae said.

He looked so captivating, sleepy and happy. Was this what he would look like in the morning, in Xiumin’s bed?

No one else had ever slept there but himself. Other than his cleaning service, no one other than himself had ever entered his apartment. It was easier, that way, to ensure that it was one place where he never need worry about his own safety. But he had no affection for the place. It was where he slept when he must, where he stored his belongings. To take Jongdae there would be the first time the place held anything warm.

And what would Jongdae say, to be shepherded through the artfully disguised metal detectors in the lobby, up the keypad-encrypted elevator, to that ostentatious space, as anonymous as a hotel room?

The probable resulting set of questions would be uncomfortable at best.

“Oh, what’s that expression?” Jongdae asked, worry taking some of the slur out of his voice. “What’s wrong?”

“I apologize,” Xiumin said. “I let my thoughts run away with me.”

To ease the skepticism on Jongdae’s face, he pulled out his phone.

“Tell me your number,” he said.

The smile was as much a reward as the number.

“Text me,” Jongdae said, “so I can have yours too.”

Damn, he should’ve prepared more thoroughly.

“This is a work phone,” Xiumin said. “They’re quite strict. But don’t worry. You’ll hear from me.”

Sleepiness was winning the struggle. Jongdae’s eyes were heavy-lidded. But the whine when he said

“You’d better mean that, hyung,”

was adorable.

Xiumin allowed himself the pleasurable torture of hauling Jongdae to his feet and half-carrying him to the road. He was too skinny, but nestled close, their bodies fit comfortably together. His shampoo smelled like almonds, and he rested his head on Xiumin’s shoulder as if Xiumin were a person to be trusted, relied on. He was so warm. His hand around Xiumin’s waist was half-heartedly pulling at Xiumin’s shirt, as if trying to tug it loose.

So very, very tempting.

But he was drunk and half asleep. If Xiumin were going to have him, he wanted Jongdae’s full attention.

He flagged down a cab.

“Aw, hyung,” Jongdae said when Xiumin reached for the door.

“Go home and sleep,” Xiumin murmured in his ear, and Jongdae shivered, then sighed. “I’ll be in touch.”

He passed a bill to the driver to pay for the fare. The instant the cab pulled away, Jongdae looked back through the back windshield. Without Jongdae’s presence to remind Xiumin to temper himself, Xiumin’s desire clawed at him, watching that face recede until it was a pale spot in the dark window.

He waved for his own cab. It was absurd, but he could’ve sworn that his fingers still tingled from touching Jongdae’s face. When he closed his eyes, he could feel Jongdae’s body pressed against his, sense the other man’s warmth. Picture his smile, hear his laugh, see the expressiveness of his hands when he talked.

At his building, Xiumin slammed the taxi door behind him and waited for the elevator with his chin down, hands clenched into fists in his pockets. Stared at the floor display as if it would make the elevator ascend more quickly.

But once inside his apartment, he forced himself – teeth gritted – to maintain his habits: to set his shoes neat and straight in their spot by the door, to hang his jacket in the front closet. To place his clothes in the laundry hamper while the shower heated.

By the time he stepped into the water, he thought he could crawl out of his skin. His fingers were unsteady until he grasped himself, pulling rough and fast with Jongdae’s face in his mind. Too soon, he was coming with a hoarse, low cry. It wasn’t anything like what he wanted, but maybe it would allow his mind to slow down.

Even as late in the year as it was, he turned the air conditioner down in his bedroom and slid between the soft sheets. Xiumin knew he had a reputation for patience. In business, he was cautious to the edge of absurdity, wishing to obtain all possible information before moving on a decision. In his personal life –

Could he call it a personal life? It was the very essence of impersonal, the way he usually went about things. More than half the time he didn’t know his companion’s family name. And even if they weren’t technically hired to entertain him, his encounters were usually transactional in some fashion, payment taking the form of gifts or favors. But during this – play time, maybe, if it was so impersonal – he did not hesitate to grasp what he wanted, to let desire rule him.

The manner in which he wanted Jongdae was different. It had nothing to do with business, nothing to do with transactions. He already knew more about Jongdae than he did about Suho, and they had once been trapped in a rival outfit’s sub-basement for three days together.

It wasn’t enough.


	13. Jongdae

Jongdae woke up still wearing the same clothes, his mouth as dry as sand, but with only a mild headache. The last thing he remembered was trying to snuggle with Minseok on the sidewalk.

Oh, great. Real smooth, Jongdae.

There was a voicemail on his phone, from a blocked number.

“Good morning,” Minseok’s voice purred in his ear when he opened it.

Jongdae shivered and grinned.

“If you haven’t already, drink a glass of water. I’ll call you later. Thank you for last night.”

Minseok’s voice seemed to be an instant hangover cure, because Jongdae suddenly felt like he could hop around on the clouds.

One very hot shower later, Jongdae felt and smelled more like an actual human. He was listening to the message again when Chanyeol emerged from his room.

“So I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that message is good news,” he said after Jongdae had lowered the phone from his ear, but while he was still grinning at it like a moron.

“I went on a date last night.”

When he was really delighted, Chanyeol had a grin that took up fully half his face and seemed to increase the amount of ambient light.

“Dae! What! Sit down and spill, I want to hear every detail, please be especially specific about the sex.”

Jongdae flicked water at him.

“It was a first date, Chanyeol.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Not everyone thinks the best way to get to know a person is by sleeping with them.”

“I don’t know why not, it’s really efficient.”

They jostled and elbowed one another until the coffee was ready. Then Chan leaned forward and nodded his oversized head.

“Okay, seriously. Who is this guy? Where’d you meet him?”

Jongdae could hear that he sounded like a dumbass, practically squeaking over how gorgeous Minseok was, a little mysterious. But he knew Chan wouldn’t ever judge him for liking somebody. Next to music, liking people was Chan’s favorite thing in the world.

“And I guess he must work for some huge firm, because he told this story about business dinners at places where you have to wait a year to get in.”

“Ah, a sugar daddy. That’s just what you need.”

“Shut up, Chanyeol.”

“I’m not judging! I’m just saying – when he gives you allowance, make sure it’s big enough to take me out to one of those restaurants some time.”

Jongdae tried to glare, but he couldn’t work up any real irritation behind it.

“You like him, huh?” Chan asked, his smile going all tender in a way that made Jongdae feel shy.

“Yeah. I mean, I barely know him, but. Yeah.”

“That’s awesome, man. He’d better like you at least twice as much, or he doesn’t deserve you and Nini and I’ll have to loom menacingly over him until he begs for mercy.”

“You do realize that being menacing requires a little more than simply being tall.”

“Tall is all we have going for us, Jongdae, don’t try to take it away from us.”

When Chanyeol got up to go shower, Jongdae listened to the message again. It was just as good the third time. Kind of frustrating that calling back didn’t work, but he’d take what he could get and try not to be too impatient.

Try and fail, probably, but he _would_ try.

There was another message waiting for him when he got out of his first class. Jongdae was mostly successful at not literally skipping to the nearest bench to sit down and listen to it.

“Damn,” Minseok said, sounding more amused than annoyed. “I missed you. I demand that you give me your schedule next time we speak, so I can know when it’s convenient to call.”

“Do you want to save this message,” the phone screen read.

Hell yes he wanted to save it.

Minseok finally reached him just after four, when Jongdae was on the bus between school and Top Fashion. Jongdae hunched down and curled around the phone, so no one would yell at him.

“How are you feeling?” Minseok asked, warmth and amusement so clear in his voice that even Jongdae couldn’t pretend it was his imagination.

“Surprisingly good,” he said. “Like I went on a really good date last night or something.”

Minseok laughed.

“Hyung, I’m sorry I passed out on you.”

“And I told you not to worry about it, Jongdae. I’m sure you’ll make it up to me.”

Man, if he was going to talk in that low, sexy voice, Jongdae would make it up to him as much as Minseok wanted.

“Are you free tomorrow night?”

Jongdae grinned.

“Let me check, I think – aw. I close tomorrow night. I won’t be done until around ten.”

“Is that too late? Do you have an early morning on Wednesday? I’d like to see you, even if it’s only briefly.”

Jongdae bounced in the bus seat in lieu of punching the air.

“I’ve got class at eight-thirty, but yeah, we can meet.”

“I’ll come get you. At ten? Tell me the address. We can grab a bite and I’ll drive you home.”

He had a short response essay due Thursday afternoon and full days in between, but screw it.

“That sounds great.”

 

Jongdae floated through the next day. He spent all three bus rides and every spare minute keeping up on school work and was even able to catch a thirty-minute nap in the library midday, so he wouldn’t fall asleep again like a jerk.

He didn’t know a lot about cars, but the one waiting outside Top Fashion on Wednesday night was black and low to the ground. It looked like something that would have a girl idol draped over it in a magazine.

The passenger side window lowered, and Minseok gave a little wave that was too cute to match the surroundings.

“Wow, this is A Car,” Jongdae said, sliding down into the tofu-soft seat.

“It certainly is,” Minseok said. “Watch this.”

First he pushed a button that opened the roof. Then he pushed another button, and a guy screamed in Japanese over an expertly played, wailing guitar. Minseok grinned, moved his legs, slapped the gear shift, and the car roared loudly enough to be heard over the music. They peeled out into the road fast enough that Jongdae was pressed back into the seat.

At least the music was loud enough to probably drown out his shout. The music vibrated in his chest, and the wind was cool in his hair while Seoul whipped by outside the window, a blur of neon and LED. Buffeted by sound and wind, he didn’t have any room left over in his head to think. It was awesome.

They slowed after just a few minutes, turning into smaller side streets. Jongdae caught his breath, but he saw no reason to quit smiling yet.

Hyung,” he said when they parked. “You’re impossibly cool. Are you sure you actually mean to be out on a date with _me_?”

Minseok tilted his head, and if he didn’t quite smile, his amusement was plain in the twist of his mouth. He blinked slowly.

“I’m quite sure,” he said.

Thank goodness it was dark, because Jongdae was pretty sure he turned the color of pepper sauce.

Dinner was just seafood stew, in a quiet little place staffed by artsy-looking kids with piercings, a tattooed cook visible in the back with a pair of grey braids running down his back almost to his waist. But there were American jazz records hung on the walls, and the soft indie-rock playing in the background sounded like the kind of thing that always made Chanyeol bounce up and down and talk too fast to be understood.

Maybe that was what Jongdae run his mouth so much about his roommates. But Minseok asked a lot of questions, too. He even seemed genuinely interested in the answers.

“Well, Chan and I were in a band, so we were pretty joined at the hip for a while.”

Minseok’s surprised grin made him look like Hamtaro. It’d be pretty disrespectful to pinch his cheeks, but that didn’t stop Jongdae from being tempted.

“A band?”

Jongdae nodded.

“Chan was the drummer, and I was the singer.”

“Moody pop? Or, let’s see, experimental rock?”

“Hyung. First of all, quit giving me all the razor clams, they’re too good for me to hog them. Second of all, give me some credit. We were a _punk_ band.”

Minseok laughed silently behind his crossed hands, and Jongdae noted for approximately the four hundredth time his hope that at some point they would start to make with the making out.

“Honestly?”

“It’s super embarrassing. We had the whole aesthetic going. For a while, my hair was green. Chanyeol wore a mohawk, and when you see his ears, you’ll understand just how hilarious that is. We did the whole eyeliner and spiked jackets thing. We had _groupies,_ even though our only claim to fame was being loud. We were the kings of campus for about nine weeks, until Minho’s amp fried, and none of us could afford to get a new one, and our career as rock stars ended.”

“I’m having a hard time reconciling punk band with classical music major,” Minseok said through a grin.

Jongdae shrugged and dug around in the stew until he found a fat shrimp to set atop Minseok’s rice and try to even out this feeding business.

“It’s all music,” he said. “And I like most of it. I mean, I don’t really _love_ things like, um, jazz fusion and I guess tedious, droney stuff. Mostly I’m just glad I didn’t blow my voice out. And that I got Chan out of the deal.”

“How long have you lived together?”

“Since our third year of college. Jongin was a couple of years behind us, and we took him under our wings. Chanyeol found him wandering around lost on the entire wrong end of campus on his second day. After that, it’s been the three of us, except when I was in the army. They got our place while I was away, because it’s near the studio Chan set up and on a bus line to the ballet school. So it was easy to just move in with them when I went back to school.”

“Studio?”

“Chan’s a music producer. Pretty small-time so far, but he’s starting to get some steady work from families wanting good demos for the idol companies. He has a great ear.”

They sat quiet for long enough for Jongdae to regret running his mouth so much.

“I’ve done nothing but talk about myself.”

Minseok had this way of smiling with just his eyes.

“I asked.”

“It can’t be that interesting.”

“Jongdae.”

He crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. His attention was so intense that Jongdae thought he could physically feel it.

“Is my interest not plain enough?”

Jongdae blushed, and it seemed easier to look at the mostly empty pot of stew, which wouldn’t stare back. He rubbed his nose.

“I, um. No. It is.”

Minseok tapped his ankle under the table with one foot.

“Then stop worrying.”

They didn’t stay long after that.

“I take seriously my responsibility not to interfere with your studies,” Minseok said when they were stopped outside Jongdae’s apartment.

This sounded so dumb that Jongdae whined about it.

Minseok put his hand around Jongdae’s neck, his thumb stroking his cheek once, and Jongdae found himself unable to speak, owing to all the nerves in his body suddenly being needed to focus on how cool Minseok’s hand was, the strength in the fingers pressed up against his nape, and the soft brush of Minseok’s thumb.

He hoped he didn’t actually whimper out loud.

“Stop worrying,” Minseok said again, as softly as a caress.


	14. Xiumin

The first time, it had been a deliberate choice not to touch Jongdae – to give each of them an out. To step carefully into these waters while leaving a clear path of retreat. The more time they spent together, the less Xiumin understood why he hesitated.

He was unused to applying his assessment skills to himself and his emotions. It made for discomfort, to realize just how much he feared that Jongdae would be drawn into the darkness of his life.

Chaeyoung made a misstep: some of YG’s runners lost either their sense of direction or their will to live while evading the police and ended up in the territory of a gang so infuriating that Xiumin had issued a ban on ever dealing with them 5 years previously. But a minor street war broke out between Chaeyoung’s people and Block B, and it was bad for business.

“End it,” Xiumin said, and Baekhyun whooped with excitement on his way out the door.

The street war was finished in under 72 hours. Chaeyoung sent over her father’s old contract, updated with her thumbprint, done old style in actual blood. Back to business as usual.

In earlier days, this was merely part of one’s work day. Xiumin wouldn’t have spared a second thought to any part of this business. But he caught himself wondering whether Jongdae would frown at the brownish thumbprint, turn away from it in disgust.

Baekhyun lounged on the sofa in Xiumin’s office, shirt halfway unbuttoned, his eyes languid and fingers playing with his own neck. Xiumin had seen this, too, any time a job was done and the thirst of Baekhyun’s knives had been quenched. He had even played along on occasion, leaving Baekhyun marked up and fucked out, promising Xiumin the world from his hands and knees.

Knowing that, Xiumin felt sure, would make Jongdae turn away.

And that equation, while currently unsolvable, picked at the back of Xiumin’s mind. What kind of man did Jongdae think he was? What kind of man did Jongdae want him to be? Could he even be it?

All of this over a man he hadn’t even yet kissed.

The longer he went on, picking Jongdae up from the tea shop or the clothing store, taking him to eat noodles or sushi or just ice cream, and walking together briefly before driving him to that ragged little neighborhood and watching him walk away, the more Xiumin’s desire grew, until it was a thing so insistent and hungry that he knew the minute one of them touched the other, he would break.

So he kept his mouth and – mostly – his hands to himself and marveled that Jongdae continued to meet him. Continued to answer his questions and laugh, to pester him about his cell phone.

“Hyung,” he had whined, and it was so annoying that Xiumin’s lust backed off long enough for him to see clearly the affection that had been growing behind it, “You have to give me a way to get in touch with you. This is ridiculous, you’re like the only person in South Korea who isn’t reachable by cell phone. It’s like you’re a monk. Except they probably have phones.”

So now Xiumin carried two phones in his pockets: one layered in so much encryption that it would be unusable by anyone not in possession of his right thumb, and one cheap little purple burner with only one contact.

Upon receipt of the number, Jongdae had called him, despite sitting literally 15 cm away on a park bench at the time.

He waggled his eyebrows until Xiumin sighed and answered the phone.

“Welcome to the modern world!” Jongdae shouted, in both ears at the same time.

He was adorable. He spoke to Xiumin like a normal person, teased him fearlessly. Blatantly, obviously fretted over the way their relationship was so platonic such that Xiumin found himself behaving with a tenderness he didn’t know he possessed.

It was as if the world was shifting under his feet. Better to stay cautious, move slowly, until the wisest course action became clear – excepting, of course, the truly wise version, which would’ve required never seeing Jongdae again.

After three weeks of seeing one another Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday with multiple phone calls in between, Xiumin was surprised to feel the vibration of the burner phone on a Wednesday night. D.O.’s eyebrows rose at the sight of the garish purple case, but he left the office at Xiumin’s nod.

“Hey,” Jongdae said. “Two things. Do you like the ballet? Jongin’s class is in a showcase at the school on Saturday, and I have a ticket for you, if you want to go. We don’t have to hang out with anybody if you’re not ready to meet my friends, but I thought maybe, since it’s a thing we have to shut up and watch and not just hang out, it would be –“

“That sounds lovely,” Xiumin said. “I’ve never been to the ballet.”

“Oh, great,” Jongdae said, sounding so thrilled that Xiumin felt his mouth curve up. “And, uh.”

Xiumin waited.

“So.”

Xiumin waited.

“Like, Friday is the dress rehearsal, right? Jongin’ll be at the school late, and he said he’ll stay with his friend Sehun afterward, since it’s closer. And Chanyeol’s actually going down to Busan tomorrow for the rest of the week to meet with some commercial client. So it’ll just be me wandering around in the apartment, and I figured.”

Xiumin found it necessary to readjust himself in his trousers and to take several slow breaths.

“Hmm,” he said.

Jongdae laughed, a little low and breathy, which did nothing to quell the mental images against which Xiumin was currently struggling.

“I think I’ve learned how to decipher your ‘hmmms,’ and I’m pretty sure that’s a yes,” he said.

Oh, he was lovely.

“You are correct.”

“Great!” Jongdae said. “That’s – that’s great. Awesome. We’ll have. Uh. That’ll be nice.”

Hanging up the phone, Xiumin didn’t know whether to laugh or groan.

But the thought that in a couple of days they would be alone behind a door would not leave Xiumin’s mind. Thursday and Friday during the day, he was distracted and irritable at work, to the point that Suho muted him on a call to their Chinese colleagues before he caused an incident.

He had to find a better way to compartmentalize things.

Xiumin stood in front of his closet on Friday evening, frozen with indecision over what to wear, of all things. It was only when he looked at his watch and realized that if he didn’t leave immediately, he would be late picking Jongdae up that he grabbed two of the closest pieces of clothing and dragged them on.

“All black car, all black clothes,” Jongdae said when he got into the car. “Is this a metaphor?”

Xiumin grimaced down at himself, but Jongdae was grinning wide.

As they pulled into traffic, he said,

“Okay, I’m warning you, my apartment is really, really crappy. Seriously. Whatever your expectations are, lower them.”

Xiumin laughed.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“Well, okay, it could actually be worse. But it’s definitely not _good._ ”

It was fine. The building was in a rundown neighborhood, but one without any notable gang activity, of old enough construction that the top floor apartments certainly leaked and the first-floor apartments probably flooded on occasion. It would be cold in the winter. But the doors locked, and the lights worked, so it was better than some other places Xiumin had known.

They had far too much cheap furniture for the available space, none of it matching, but it was relatively tidy.

They sat on the sofa, not quite close enough to touch, and the silence thickened. Xiumin knew he should say something. Jongdae made it seem so easy to begin and maintain conversations, but he was currently staring at his own knees, eyebrows drawn together.

“Minseok, I –“ he said, raising his head.

Then he tilted his head, as if he saw something in Xiumin’s face. Xiumin wondered what it could possibly be.

“Do I need to take the lead?” Jongdae murmured, leaning in close. “I don’t usually, but –“

He kissed Xiumin so softly, one hand light against Xiumin’s cheek, obviously making room for Xiumin to pull away.

Xiumin’s feeble grasp on control evaporated. He opened his mouth, curled his hand around the back of Jongdae’s neck, and kissed him as thoroughly as he had dreamed of doing. Jongdae inhaled sharply through his nose, then matched him for fervor, their mouths hungry on one another’s. Xiumin pushed Jongdae back into the sofa, and Jongdae’s hands pulled at his shirt, then ran up his back, warm and leaving trails of sensation behind them.

“Thank god,” Jongdae said when Xiumin drew briefly back. “I was starting to be afraid you didn’t want to do that.”

Xiumin bent his head to the beautiful curve of Jongdae’s neck, kissing roughly when Jongdae arched his head and made a low sound in his throat that Xiumin could feel against his lips.

“I want more room,” he said a couple of minutes later, frustrated with his inability to get his arms around Jongdae on that wretched sofa.

Jongdae nodded, but his lips looked so pretty, pink and slightly swollen, that it was another few minutes more before he wriggled (delightful) and Xiumin let him up. Jondgae led him to the room to the left of the kitchen area – a cramped little space that Xiumin vaguely registered as crammed with musical instruments before he pushed Jongdae down onto the obviously freshly made bed and lowered himself.

Jongdae immediately curled one leg across the back of Xiumin’s thighs and pulled at his collar, half-smiling. He put lips and tongue to Xiumin’s neck – Xiumin heard his own harsh breathing while he worked on the buttons of his shirt, then tossed it behind him.

“Damn,” Jongdae said, running his hands over Xiumin’s chest, then lower, so that Xiumin’s belly clenched.

Xiumin pushed Jongdae’s shirt up far enough to cover his face and tangle his arms, then pinned him there, nipping up the side of Jongdae’s chest. Jongdae struggled briefly, then his leg tightened across Xiumin’s back. After giving enough attention to one nipple that Jongdae started to grind up against him, Xiumin pushed the shirt all the way up and freed Jongdae’s arms. His hair was tousled and his face flushed. He looked beautiful.

“I thought we were taking things slow,” he said around a gasp when Xiumin shifted so they ground against each other.

“I don’t have – _anything,_ ” he complained.

Xiumin grinned.

“That’s no obstacle,” he said.

He blessed the amount of time he put into physical training for the rapidity with which it allowed him to remove two pairs of jeans and get his mouth around Jongdae’s cock.

“Hyung!”

It had been a while. There was a dicey moment with his gag reflex. But how gratifying, the way each of Jongdae’s words devolved into a moan or a gasp, and the way his hands scrabbled at the sheets when Xiumin sucked hard, drawing back and pressing his tongue firmly.

Jongdae was neither quiet nor still during the proceedings, whimpering encouragement and curses, once catching his foot on the end of the bed and arching so that Xiumin had to take him around the waist and move upward to stay attached.

When he pulled off and crawled up, Jongdae blinked up at the ceiling, still breathing hard. He looked surprised. He looked gorgeous, splayed out on the bed.

“I want to see,” Xiumin said, hearing the roughness of his own voice, then licking his hand and taking them together in a tight grip.

Jongdae hissed and pulled Xiumin to his mouth. He dug his fingers into Xiumin’s shoulders.

When Jongdae started to tremble and rut up into his fist, Xiumin pulled back to stare down at Jongdae’s face. There was a tiny crease between his eyebrows, and he bit his lip once, tried to shake his head against Xiumin’s grip against the back of his neck. Xiumin pulled at them both roughly, and he got his wish. He watched as Jongdae briefly stilled, then tried to move, the way his eyes rolled back and he cried out sharply, spilling warm over Xiumin’s hand so beautifully that it sent Xiumin over the edge after him.


	15. Jongdae

Well that was unexpected.

It had been so long since Jongdae had gotten laid that he was bound to enjoy it even it wasn’t that great, but _damn._ The things Minseok had done with his mouth. Just thinking about the intense expression on Minseok’s face as he had stared down made Jongdae’s cock twitch half-heartedly, even though it was super tired.

“I guess you proved your interest,” he said when he felt like he could talk.

And Minseok gathered him up close, laughed in his ear, and kissed his temple. Jongdae could only sigh with contentment.

He couldn’t bring himself to get sleepy, though, because Minseok was so beautiful. Underneath all those clothes, he was built like an athlete. He had muscles absolutely everywhere, and Jongdae couldn’t decide whether he wanted more to look or to touch. And when he put his hands in Minseok’s hair, he purred like the cat he looked like, eyes closed and a tiny smile on that handsome face. He let Jongdae roll him over onto his back and kiss him, slow and soft.

Just when Jongdae started to cool down and notice how sticky they both were, Minseok kissed him again and rolled up off the bed. Jongdae was treated to the view from the back of Minseok stretching and wondered how he got so lucky.

Then Minseok returned from the bathroom with a warm cloth and wiped him clean, gently and punctuated by soft kisses.

“You’re spoiling me rotten,” he said.

“You say that now,” Minseok said, “but I was about to tell you how hungry I am.”

And he grinned so wide, his cheeks so round and cute, that Jongdae couldn’t even whine at him.

All the tension that had been driving him to distraction the past couple of weeks was gone. They spoke less but laughed more as they dressed. Jongdae did complain a little when Minseok made him fetch a clean set of sheets and helped change them.

They walked down the street, bumping shoulders and matching their strides easily, to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant down the street that was the go-to celebration spot for Jongdae and his roommates. It was a little grubby and didn’t serve anything fancier than pork skin, but they could’ve sat outside a convenience store with nothing more than crab chips and Jongdae still would’ve felt like singing.

“I want five orders of everything,” he said.

Minseok grinned again.

“Let’s make it six.”

The previous few weeks, Minseok had been mostly silent, prodding Jongdae to talk to his heart’s content. Jongdae was delighted that suddenly Minseok was practically chatty. Even better, he kept stopping mid-sentence to tilt his head and smile, as if he was just as distracted as Jongdae.

“You have an unexpectedly large number of extra sheet sets,” Minseok said at one point.

“That’s Chanyeol’s room,” Jongdae said. “He brings a _lot_ of people home.”

“Why were we in Chanyeol’s room?”

And that made Jongdae blush again.

“It’s only a two-bedroom apartment, you know? I don’t. I mean, it works out fine, and I pay a little less in rent. He totally doesn’t mind. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does it? But that’s. I mean. It’s hard for me to invite people over, because. Yeah.”

Minseok listened to this with his solemn facial expression back on his face, his lips pursed.

“I see,” he said.

“Is it? Does it bother you? You don’t have to come back home with me, it’s okay, I should've said –“

“Jongdae,” Minseok said.

There was something about the way Minseok said his name sometimes that just made him feel calm. If he didn’t look out, he was going to be so head over heels.

“We have unfinished business. I am absolutely not going to pass up my opportunity.”

Jongdae had to cover his face. Oh man, he was in trouble.

 

They didn’t quite eat six orders of pork skin, but they ate enough that the ahjumma who ran the place laughed at them and called them “hungry boys.” Minseok laughed back, saying,

“Can’t you tell that we’re at the age where we can only grow out, not up?”

It was by far the best evening Jongdae had had in probably years.

They veered into a convenience store on the way back, stepping in time with one another like their minds were connected. Jongdae’s breath caught a little, watching Minseok examine the various boxes of condoms, as if they were really any different from one another, and pluck the largest available bottle of lube from the shelf.

They plunked these onto the counter next to their bottles of soju. The guy behind the register stared down, scowled at the two of them, and all the good feeling drained out of him. Jongdae could see it coming, how things were about to get really ugly, really fast, and ruin the night.

Except that Minseok took a step toward the counter, his head up and shoulders thrown back. Jongdae couldn’t see what happened with his face, but whatever it was made the convenience store guy blanch and ring up their purchases without so much as a mutter. Crazy.

And outside, Minseok slung the bag over his shoulder, looked over at Jongdae, and took his hand, right there in the street. With every step, Jongdae felt himself go more light-headed with anticipation.

 

He had always thought of himself as a creative person, being a musician and all, but everything he had fantasized about was the palest shadow of actually getting Minseok into bed. Even the way he pulled them upstairs and to the back of the apartment had Jongdae giddy – not rough, and not really at a run, but with enough firmness and speed that Jongdae knew Minseok _wanted_ just as much as he did.

When the bedroom door was shut, Minseok dropped the shopping bag and took Jongdae’s face in both hands, kissing him deep and slow, the flavor of soju and cucumber kimchi on his tongue.

“Please,” Minseok said, his voice so low and urgent that Jongdae was ready to say yes to just about anything.

“Please, can I have you?”

Jongdae nearly spontaneously combusted right on the spot.

“God, yes,” he said, and nobody would fault him that it came out sounding so breathless.

Minseok kissed him like he was something precious. Jongdae struggled with a shirt button, and Minseok broke the kiss. Jongdae couldn’t think of anybody who had ever looked at him with so much desire.

“Let me,” Minseok said, still in that low voice, and nodded toward the bed.

Jongdae scrambled backwards, staring while Minseok stripped off his shirt, then crawled toward him, never breaking eye contact.

It was like something out of a movie, until it was made real by Minseok’s skin under his hands, Minseok’s mouth on his. Need was a sweet, sweet ache.

And when he reached for Minseok’s fly, Minseok took his hand and pinned it to the bed.

“I said let me,” he said, setting his teeth into Jongdae’s shoulder until he saw sparks.

Then Minseok set about torturing him.

Every time he tried to move, Minseok would pin him down, say something like “I said let me, Jongdae,” or “why are you so bad at following directions?” and put his mouth, or his teeth, or his hand somewhere even better than the last location, until Jongdae was shuddering, with two of Minseok’s fingers inside him, sliding slowly in and out, his cock ready to burst.

“Shhh,” Minseok said.

“I want –“

Minseok kissed him again, those two fingers driving up to the base. Jongdae caught his breath, arched his back. It was so good and so far from enough. Minseok even still had his pants on, like some kind of complete jerk.

“We’ll get there,” Minseok whispered.

“You’re terrible,” Jongdae said, and Minseok laughed low and quiet, pulling his fingers out with a crook and a twist that hit the good spot and made Jongdae cry out.

“There you go.”

“Hyung, please.”

Minseok put his mouth up under Jongdae’s ear and worked the soft skin there. Jongdae squirmed. He could hear his own panting breath, and the stretch of Minseok’s fingers burned, but he wanted more.

“Another?”

“Please, hyung.”

And, oh, it was almost too much to bear, Minseok’s fingers pulling slowly out of him, Minseok’s eyes looking down at him, with heat and affection, the ache and stretch of a third finger, Minseok’s voice in his ear, telling him how good he was, how well he was doing.

“So gorgeous,” Minseok said.

He wanted to yell his frustration, wanted to move, to climb on top of Minseok and fill himself with Minseok’s cock. He didn’t want to wait any more, he could feel every inch of his own skin, it was all so much –

“Breathe,” Minseok said. “Just a little more.”

He turned his hand. Jongdae hissed, and gripped Minseok’s shoulders hard to give himself a point of focus.

“There,” Minseok said. “Can’t have you getting so worked up that you can’t pay attention to what’s going on.”

He withdrew his fingers, so slowly that it made Jongdae’s toes curl.

“You’re a terrible tease, hyung.”

Minseok kissed him, sucked on his bottom lip until Jongdae sighed, then looked down at him with a smile that looked a little like a threat.

“The first time should be one you remember forever,” he said, the husky note in his voice even more pronounced than usual. “There’s plenty of time to wreck you later.”

“Oh god,” Jongdae said.

“In the meantime, I suggest you turn over.”

Jongdae turned over.

Minseok laughed once, then folded a pillow in half and patted Jongdae’s hip.

Jongdae felt a little weird and exposed, with his ass up in the air, but the pillow gave him something to rub up against, to ease his poor, neglected, aching cock.

Minseok slapped his calf.

“Stop that. Acting as if I’m not going to take care of you.”

Jongdae dropped his chin onto his hands and stuck his bottom lip out, like he wasn’t having the most awesome time ever despite all this horrible teasing. He heard the sound of a zipper and the rustle of fabric and shivered. He felt Minseok’s hand on his ankle, then it slid up his leg, cool and firm, then kneaded his ass, and Jongdae sighed in lieu of squirming some more. Minseok hummed his approval, leaned in to place a line of kisses up Jongdae’s back.

“Oh, I’ve wanted this,” Minseok whispered in his ear, and Jongdae felt like he could feel every single one of his nerves – the cool sheets under his chest, the pillow pressing his cock up against his belly, Minseok’s warm breath in his ear, the heat of his body not quite touching Jongdae’s, and that one slightly warmer, damp bit pressed against the back of his thigh, so close. He was so ready, he felt _empty_.

He felt cold when Minseok sat back, and shuddered at the sound of the condom packet opening. He was so focused that it almost tickled when Minseok touched his ass. But then one slick finger slipped inside him, and he pushed back for more.

“So impatient,” Minseok murmured.

But the finger went away, and then _finally_. He hadn’t hardly even gotten a look at Minseok’s dick when they had made out before, so he didn’t know what to expect. He tensed up briefly at the initial stretch, but Minseok’s hands grasped his hips, thumbs moving in circles, and Jongdae remembered to exhale and relax into it. By slow, agonizing centimeters, Minseok entered him, until his hips met Jongdae’s ass.

“Okay?” Minsoek asked.

“Hyung,” Jongdae groaned. “I am literally begging you right now to move.”

Teasing time must’ve been over, because Minseok gave his ass one small slap and clicked his tongue, but he did move – at first so slowly that Jongdae could only grit his teeth. He clenched by way of revenge. His reward was Minseok moaning low and thrusting harder.

Jongdae tried to rise up on his hands to get better leverage, but Minseok said “no” in a growl so sexy that he flopped back down on his stomach. Minseok snapped his hips, and Jongdae was so filled up, the friction from the pillow was so good on his cock that his blood rushed in his ears. If he wasn’t allowed to move, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He curled his forearms over the back of his head and moaned again after one fierce thrust.

Horribly, Minseok stopped.

“Are you all right?” he asked, sounding out of breath, but his hands gentle on Jongdae’s lower back.

“Well, I was until you stopped,” Jongdae said, because what in the hell.

“Oh, you are maddening,” Minseok said.

Jongdae was thrilled that this was followed by Minseok hauling him up and backwards onto his knees, wrapping one hand around his cock and the other pushing his head back.

“No one has ever,” Minseok growled into his ear, each word punctuated by a thrust, “spoken to me like this while I was fucking them.”

His grip on Jongdae’s cock was so tight it almost – but not quite – hurt.

“Are you going to tell me this isn’t good?” he said, increasing his pace until Jongdae would’ve been gasping even if his neck hadn’t been cranked back so far.

“No, hyung.”

“Are you complaining?”

“No, hyung.”

Jongdae could feel Minseok’s mouth up against the side of his neck, how even though his voice was low and commanding, his breath was harsh.

“Tell me what you want, Jongdae.”

More of this, for as long as humanly possible.

“You, hyung.”

“You have me. Tell me what you want.”

He stopped straining to hold himself up and let himself lean into Minseok, who shifted his arm slightly and slammed into him even harder. It hadn’t ever been like this before. Of course he was going to remember this forever, because it was the hottest fucking thing that had ever happened to anybody.

“I want you to come,” he said, sounding choked from the angle of his neck.

Two more thrusts, hitting him right where he wanted, making sparks behind his eyes.

“I want you to come in me.”

And Minseok groaned in his ear, sounding ragged and desperate, dragging his cock over Jongdae’s prostate over and over, his fist working Jongdae’s cock. He tried to hold out, but then Minseok latched onto his neck and sucked hard, and it was all too much in too many places at once. Pleasure roared outward from Jongdae’s center. He wailed while he came, would’ve lost his balance if Minseok’s grip on him hadn’t been so tight while he flailed and sobbed.

“I’ve got you,” Minseok said, but as Jongdae cried out a second time and clenched around him, his hips lost their rhythm.

“I’ve got – I –“

And then he pulled Jongdae to him so tight that there was no room to breathe, moaning brokenly as he thrust hard four, five more times.

Jongdae felt like he could happily collapse into a heap right where he was, but Minseok – who was obviously some kind of superhero – maneuvered them almost gracefully down onto their sides, still connected, before either of them caught his breath.

Jongdae wrapped his hand around Minseok’s where it lay on his chest and snuggled backward. The bed was a disaster zone of his own semen, and he was pretty sure his face was resting on one bit, and he absolutely did not care.

After a couple minutes’ recovery, Minseok pulled out of him, leaving him feeling the best kind of achy. Jongdae rolled back and tilted his chin up until Minseok got the hint and kissed him. Jongdae felt the smile on his lips.

“Worth the wait,” he said.

Minseok bit his bottom lip gently before drawing back to look down at him, one hand cupping his cheek.

“Indeed.”

Jongdae dozed a little, barely registering when Minseok left, or the brief sound of the shower.

He registered it strongly when Minseok slapped his leg.

“Up.”

“Aw, hyung, why are you being evil right now?”

He reached out his arms and made grabby hands, but Minseok shook his head, grabbed Jongdae’s ankle, and pulled.

“Up. You’re not going to lie around in all this mess.”

Terrible.

True, he was covered in come and lube and sweat, but still. Terrible. Even if the quick, hot shower felt really good.

He returned to Chanyeol’s room, ready to dump his towel on the floor and get down to some hardcore cuddling, to find Minseok on one hand, finishing up yet another bedding change but on the other hand, wearing his pants.

“Oh now what is this?”

Minseok narrowed his eyes.

“I would’ve thought thank you was more in order.”

“Why are you half dressed? Because if you’re hungry again, I’m definitely voting for naked ramyeon, and you bought all that soju.”

Minseok tilted his head, the frown dropping off his face.

“I thought I would let you get some rest.”

A terrible idea.

“Rest?” Jongdae said. “How am I going to get any rest if you leave? I’ll be sitting up until three am reanalyzing the entire evening. Wondering why you wanted to leave so fast. Convincing myself that you’ll never call me again. Possibly panic-calling Chanyeol in Busan. Almost certainly drinking all that soju by myself and going to the theater tomorrow having convinced myself that you won’t show up, with such bad dark circles under my eyes that I look like I’m wearing sunglasses.”

Thank goodness his towel started to fall off and he had to grab it, otherwise he probably would’ve kept babbling for the next half-hour. He hadn’t even finished securing it around his waist before Minseok’s hand stopped him. Minseok pulled off the towel and scrubbed briefly at Jongdae’s wet hair.

“You’re an idiot,” he said, the warmth in his tone taking any sting out of the comment.

He pulled Jongdae forward and kissed him, sweet and lingering.

“Of course I’ll show up at the theater.”

Another kiss.

“Of course I’ll call you again.”

Another kiss.

“But you’ll stay for a little while?” Jongdae asked, only kind of-sort of hoping that his heart wasn’t shining out through his eyes, because he was so, so falling for this man.

“I’ll stay for a little while.”


	16. Xiumin

In the past, waking in an unfamiliar location had been the sign of something having gone terribly wrong, requiring swift, brutal action, possibly death, probably while either grievously injured or struggling through a haze of drugs. Xiumin’s heartbeat raced, readying him for whatever unpleasantness awaited.

A thumb set itself on the bridge of his nose and swept gently upward.

“Hey, hyung, are you having a nightmare? Maybe you should wake up now.”

He opened his eyes, and Jongdae’s face was above his, light limning his head and bare shoulder, but his smile was brightest of all.

Maybe his heartbeat was racing for a different reason altogether. That was perhaps even more frightening.

“Good morning,” Jongdae said.

He set his chin on Xiumin’s chest, and Xiumin’s arms moved without prompting to circle him. Jongdae reached up to scratch him behind the ear, as if he were a cat. He stretched all the way to pointing his toes, realized that that made him look even _more_ like a cat, was struck by an unbidden mental image of Suho’s reaction to this ridiculous scene, and snorted.

“What’s so funny?”

“My mind’s running away with itself, apparently.”

“It’s the fucking,” Jongdae said. “Makes you loopy.”

Xiumin poked him in the side, and Jongdae would probably have protested that the sound he made could be described as a ‘shriek,’ however appropriate that might be.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“It’s too early for that kind of fancy vocabulary, hyung. That’s got to wait until after coffee.”

Oh, there was a welcome word.

“Not tea?”

Jongdae shook his head.

“Too fussy first thing. I’ll go start it.”

He rolled up off the bed and winced.

“Hyung,” he said with a grin, “I hurt in all the right ways.”

Xiumin wondered whether Jongdae even realized that he was humming as he moved through the apartment. It was a pleasant accompaniment as Xiumin washed up and dressed.

In the kitchen, Jongdae was leaning against the refrigerator with his eyes closed, wearing only a pair of strongly flattering dark boxer-briefs, still humming, a soft smile on his face.

With Xiumin's lust dialed back to a simmer, other emotions were laid bare. Maybe some cynical voice in his head had thought that once he had taken Jongdae, he could shake this off and go back to his normal routine of practically anonymous hookups and high-level financial crime.

But in the morning light, with the scent of coffee, the ache in his thighs, and the way that Jongdae’s hair fell over his forehead, the thought of a loud club and a grasping stranger was actively distasteful. He remembered how Jongdae had fussed and complained, and affection rushed through him like warmth. No one would dare talk back to Xiumin. No one would ever think of scratching behind Xiumin’s ears.

He remembered how Jongdae had surrendered, holding his weight, the warmth of his body, the tight heat of his ass. That even when he cried out, it had sounded musical.

This was dangerous to everything. There was no way it could end well.

And yet. Every time Jongdae answered the phone, his “hyung!” sounded like the very definition of welcome. He was making a space in his life, not for Xiumin, the power broker, the deal-maker, the terror, but for Minseok, who was … what?

He didn’t even remember.

It was too much to process on a post-coital Saturday morning. It might be too much to process for a month of such. And it was stupid to waste time pondering when Jongdae stood like that, listening to the coffee maker in his boxer briefs, his slender frame leaned against the counter.

Xiumin stepped forward and kissed him, until the coffee maker gurgled and Jongdae laughed.

 

He put off breakfast, with kisses and promises of their evening date. It was too much inside his head – he needed room to think where he couldn’t be distracted by Jongdae’s presence.

And then when he got it, high up in the sky, looking out over the river to the mountains, he didn’t want it. He wanted to be back in that ugly little apartment, his hands on Jongdae’s body. Because when would he get the chance again? Jongdae’s roommates would return – one tonight, one tomorrow – and then what?

He could never bring Jongdae to this sterile penthouse. It was too excessive, too secure, too obviously set up for the very rich and the very secretive. There weren’t even any instant noodles in the cupboards.

The upcoming ballet date was another conundrum. He was used to the opera, where one wore Dolce and sat in a curtained box with champagne and caviar, conducting the messiest business (either violent or sexual) during the loud parts.

The ballet school’s Instagram was some help, there. It gave him a baseline that sent him into his closet to ponder. Xiumin remembered his early daydreams of Jongdae in blue and paid an exorbitant online delivery fee. He spent long enough in the shower that his fingertips pruned, first reliving the previous night with his cock in his fist and then scrubbing himself until his skin buzzed.

He dressed carefully, in black and silver with a cobalt blue tie, a vest buttoned snugly over his chest, which made his shoulders look more broad. He styled his hair up off his forehead. He thought he would pass muster with Jongdae. His lover, Jongdae.

Xiumin grinned at the mirror.

 

He found Jongdae in front of the theater, wearing the shirt he had sent, cobalt blue linen that made his skin glow like sunlight. His smile, when he looked up, made Xiumin’s stride falter. He was so beautiful.

“Hey,” Jongdae said when he approached, his ears going pink.

“You look great,” Xiumin said.

It was so cute the way he shuffled his feet and pulled at the collar of the shirt.

“I had to try to keep up with you.”

“You’re adorable.”

He scowled. Xiumin wanted to laugh aloud.

“I mean, you could’ve said sexy, or super handsome, or something like that.”

Xiumin grinned. Gratifyingly, Jongdae blinked as if he’d been temporarily stunned.

“Sorry, Jongdae. You’ll have to be content with adorable.”

“Ugh, fine.”

They kept brushing arms as they made their way through the crowd to their seats. Xiumin found himself acutely aware of the desire to twine their fingers together. Not being able to do so made his hand itch. At least when they sat together, he could press his leg against Jongdae’s, lean against his shoulder while they paged through the program.

“Here’s Jongin. You won’t be able to miss him onstage. And this is his friend Sehun. They ought to both have pretty big roles.”

“Very handsome.”

Jongdae frowned, until Xiumin curled his fingers over Jongdae’s wrist and stroked the thin skin there.

“I kept thinking about you all day,” he whispered. “How gorgeous you looked, ready and open for me. How good it felt to be inside you.”

Jongdae cleared his throat. Xiumin ran his nails lightly against Jongdae’s inner wrist, then let go.

Jongdae looked up, heat in his glance, the beautiful curve of his mouth so tempting.

“Every time I close my eyes, I feel it,” he said.

Xiumin exhaled one long, shaky breath, and Jongdae grinned when the lights flashed, then lowered.

The dance was interesting. Jongdae’s friends were obviously talented and well trained. They moved with a beautiful fluidity that worked with the music so that each enhanced the other. It was curious.

“Do you want to go get a drink, or are you thinking too hard?” Jongdae asked at intermission, laughing.

“This is lovely,” Xiumin said. “I didn’t realize that music could tell a story like this.”

Delightfully, this set Jongdae off. They spent the intermission talking musical and dance theory. Xiumin marveled at the things people could get up to when they weren’t busy breaking a number of laws.

The second half, though more of the same, was equally enjoyable. Jongdae’s roommate and his friend danced a duet together, to a dark, creepy piece of modern music, in black outfits that made them both look tall and thin as they twined together. Sadly for his attention span, Jongdae’s hand kept inching its way around his thigh – a vexing reminder of the fact that Jongdae’s apartment would not be empty tonight, nor for the foreseeable future.

“Thank you,” he said when the applause was done and they were slowly working their way out of the theater.

“Everyone’s going for drinks,” Jongdae said. “Do you want? I mean, it’s okay if you don’t, it’s. I mean. My friends are a lot, and I know you’re shy, it’s okay if you don’t want to go.”

Shy?

Xiumin had to take a moment to reorient himself.

Shy.

It was beyond laughable.

And wholly unrelated to his reluctance to spend the rest of his evening with a bunch of adrenaline-spiked dancers who were also total strangers.

“Soon,” he said. “Not today, but soon.”

"It’s okay,” Jongdae said, touching his elbow as if he were in need of comfort.

That it was misplaced did nothing to lessen the pleasure of Jongdae's kindness.

“I’ll give you a ride to the bar, though.”

“Oh.”

Jongdae grinned.

“Well, if you insist, hyung, I guess I won’t turn you down.”

Jongdae was only half an hour late to the after-party. Given that they spent that time parked in an alley next to the bar, trying to consume one another without getting poked in the ribs by the gear shift, he didn’t think that Jongdae minded too much.

“Text me to let me know you got home safely,” Xiumin said finally, taking his hand back and buttoning Jongdae’s shirt back up.

“I’m gonna need about fifty drinks.”

Xiumin leaned in and nipped at Jongdae’s jawline.

“I understand. But don’t forget to text.”

“No, hyung.”

He went home for some solo frustration relief and tiresome TV, until 2:30, when the purple phone buzzed with,

“HYUN IM HOM E. THIS SOFA SUKX MIS U”

Right.

 

Monday morning, Xiumin placed a map printout and his credit card on the desk in front of his secretary.

“I need an apartment in this area,” he said. “Something normal.”

Sooyoung-ssi looked at him as if he had spouted a particularly unpleasant growth on his face, which was her standard response to surprises.

“Please define normal,” she said.

“Nothing ostentatious. A place where a regular, moderately successful person would live.”

She looked at the neighborhood on the printout, then nodded.

“Get it done and ready for visitors in two days and your bonus will be six months' salary.”

“And an extra three weeks off to spend it.”

Not for the first time, Xiumin wondered whether her talents were being wasted as his secretary.

“Done.”

He made do without administrative support for the rest of the day.

Monday night, he spent an hour on the phone with Jongdae, murmuring so much nonsense at one another that he would’ve had to kill any of his coworkers should they overhear it. That didn’t stop him, of course - the happiness in Jongdae’s voice was almost as pleasing as a caress.

Late on Tuesday, Sooyoung-ssi entered his office with as many as three hairs out of place. It was by far the most ruffled he had ever seen her. She placed his credit card on the desk.

 “I’ve spent so much of your money that it made me actually wince,” she said.

 She pulled a set of keys from her pocket and slid them across the desk.

 “However. The place is really nice. I hope it suits.”

 She grinned.

 “And that you don’t mind my taste in decor.”

 Xiumin took the address card from her hand.

 “I’m sure it’s perfect,” he said.

 First he called HR to work out Sooyoung-ssi’s bonus and time off. Once she left his office, smiling, he called Jongdae and arranged to pick him up from work.


	17. Jongdae

Jongdae was about sixty percent sure that he was living some kind of dream life. Like maybe he had gotten a major head injury and was actually lying in a coma in a hospital somewhere. Except that _probably_ dream/coma sex wouldn't leave a man needing to sit down so gingerly.

But it was all such a blur of good – well, other than the part that his super-hot new boyfriend (could he call Minseok his boyfriend yet?) didn't hang around to see how many more of Chanyeol's sheets they could mess up. His mysterious benefactor added to the general feeling that it was all unreal by sending him a shirt about a million times nicer than the one he had planned to wear to the ballet.

“Sorry, secret admirer,” he said, smoothing down a nonexistent wrinkle in the deep blue linen.

He never did get his hair to behave, but eventually it was time to go, so he had to deal with that one damn curl that never wanted to stay back.

Minseok showed up to the ballet looking like a full seven-course meal and making him absolutely crazy, just by whispering in his ear and playing with his wrist. Jongdae hadn’t known that his wrist was an erogenous zone. He guessed that _maybe_ it would be expensive to clean a bunch of come out of leather car seats, but that didn’t make him any less frustrated getting out of Minseok’s car at the after-party. So of course he drank enough that when he woke up Sunday morning, he still felt a little drunk.

Jongin wasn’t much of a drinker and was in just as bad shape. They consoled one another with takeout hangover soup made so hot with extra chile oil that they spent half the meal crying. By the time Chanyeol got home mid-afternoon, they’d achieved enough humanity that Jongin was curled up on the sofa reading, and Jongdae was trying to catch up on his neglected homework.

Chanyeol destroyed the quiet, but it was nice to get to talk up Jongin’s performance until Jongin blushed a deep bronze and hid his face behind his hands.

“I can’t believe I missed it, I’m totally buying all the chicken for dinner.”

“I’m not mad, but if you insist,” Jongin said.

It went great with the soju Jongdae and Minseok hadn’t gotten around to. Sadly, the dinner conversation started out bad and went to pure horrible.

“Jongdae,” Chan said, coming out of his room wearing his customary ragged loungewear. “Why are there _three_ freshly washed sets of sheets on the bed?”

Oh crap.

“Hmm?” he said.

Jongin grinned broadly.

“What?”

For a brief moment, Jongdae thought he was saved by the chicken delivery, but, sadly, his roommates were too obnoxious to be put off by a little thing like food.

“So what’d you do with your alone time?” Jongin asked around a mouthful of chicken leg.

“Ha, look at how red he is!”

“Excuse me, a man never kisses and tells,” Jongdae said in a desperation move.

“Uh. You know you live with Chanyeol, right?” Jongin said, laughing.

“So there was kissing!” Chan said, leaning his enormous head over the table. “Where? Good kissing? Any other body parts involved? Did you break anything? Do you have any visible marks you want to show us?”

“I don’t want to see any visible marks,” Jongin said.

“Urgh, you’re awful.”

“Ah,” Chanyeol said. “I surmise from that comment and the color of your face that somebody had some actual orgasms. Good job, buddy!”

“Nice,” Jongin said.

“That is all you need to know about it.”

“Aw, come on, Dae. I at least want to know whether it was any good.”

Jongdae let himself flop back onto the floor.

“Oh my god, it was _so_ good. You guys, I am so smitten, oh my god.”

“Awesome,” Chan rumbled, and rubbed Jongdae’s ankle.

He was obnoxious, but Jongdae figured he wouldn’t trade Chan for anything.

“How was Busan?” he asked, sitting back up and trying to bring his brain back from reliving Friday night while in company.

“Enh, it was pretty good. Kind of a boring job, but the pay for that commercial stuff is so good that I can’t really turn it down. The vice president of the tuna factory has a daughter who wants to be an idol, though, wants to hire me to help her with her audition video.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“Maybe,” Chan said, then gave the grin that made his roommates lean backward from impending horror. “What was really great was this couple I met at the hotel.”

It put Jongdae off his chicken – and too much onto that soju – listening to Chan describe in great detail how he got double-teamed by a pair of total strangers, and how the man and woman had configured it so they both had him at once.

“I have no idea how to picture that, and I’ve never been so glad to be bad at geometry,” Jongin said.

This was followed by Chanyeol lying on the floor, attempting a reenactment with one waving hand and an empty liquor bottle.

“I’m sure that was very fun,” Jongdae choked out, while Jongin stared at him desperately.

“Oh man, you have no idea. Amazing! Stay the hell out of my room for like the next week until I get it out of my system. God, I feel hot just thinking about it.”

“Please stop molesting your chest, Chanyeol.”

Chan grinned at them.

“I love you guys. I would have so much less amusement in my life if I didn’t live with a couple of shrieking little prudes.”

Jongin threw a chicken wing at him, which was a good choice.

 

He just felt so giddy, floating through the days while still buzzing with impatience for the next time he would see Minseok. They talked on the phone for a long time Monday night, a bunch of half-whispered nonsense so sweet and so hot that Jongdae spent a long time afterward in the shower, his hand shoved up against his mouth to keep quiet while he worked himself.

All day Tuesday, he danced between classes, even though the day lasted for about a month, waiting to see Minseok, who called around 4:00.

“Do you have time to go home between school and work?”

“If I hustle, yeah. Why, hyung?”

“I wondered whether you might like to spend the night at my place.”

“Oh well, sure, that’d be fine.”

Jongdae could tell that his attempt at a breezy tone was unsuccessful by the way Minseok laughed at him. It made for a hectic afternoon, and the world’s longest evening selling cheap clothes to teenagers who were grumpy about not being able to afford anything better. It seemed like the end of the evening would never come.

Minseok’s car stuck out like a sore thumb on the moderately low-rent commercial street. Jongdae slid in, and Minseok glanced at his stuffed backpack, looked at him with a smile full of promise.

But when Jongdae leaned over for a kiss, Minseok only reached up, traced one finger down the side of his neck, and turned to drive.

Argh.

Minseok’s building was on a pretty nice residential street – even the convenience store had a little awning over its outdoor seating and a couple of potted plants. Minseok stayed just out of reach as they walked through the underground parking lot and got on the elevator. He flicked his eyes up when Jongdae moved toward him after the elevator doors shut. Jongdae followed the motion, saw the cameras. Tried to keep a hold of himself. Lasted until they were inside the apartment and Minseok had his second shoe mostly off, then backed him up against the wall and kissed him like he’d been waiting to do for ages.

“I thought you said that you don’t usually take the lead,” Minseok said, sounding way too together, considering that at the time Jongdae was licking along the veins of his neck and had one hand down his pants.

Jongdae looked up and tried to part the haze of lust long enough to form a coherent sentence.

“Is this a problem?”

“Oh no,” Minseok said, giving a slow smile. “Please. Take whatever you want.”

The sound that came out of Jongdae’s mouth was half groan, half strangled laugh. Because he wanted everything. And he knew – he knew intimately – how strong Minseok was, how easy it would be for Minseok to take charge. But he was leaned up against the wall, even sagging a little to exaggerate that he was a few centimeters shorter. He opened his mouth and let Jongdae take.

“I want you sitting down,” he said.

Minseok nodded, but he looked so good, his lips parted and wet, eyes half-closed, that Jongdae had to kiss him again first.

Minseok led him by the wrist to the bedroom. The only light came from around the edge of the curtain, so Jongdae undressed him mostly by feel: his rounded shoulders, the long lines of his back. He tugged his own shirt off as Minseok sat on the low bed, then he kneeled.

He could see the barest glimmer of Minseok’s eyes looking down at him. Jongdae put his hands onto Minseok’s thighs, kneading lightly at the muscles there. The acute memory of how these legs had held them both up and still thrust into him hard enough to make him see white made his own cock jump.

He leaned in and let his breath ghost over Minseok’s cock, letting his thumbs drift inward. Teased with his breath; Minseok remained silent, but one hand curled into a fist in the sheet. Jongdae took that as his cue to dive in, closing his lips tight when he felt the head hit the back of his mouth. Minseok inhaled sharply through his nose.

Jongdae made it into a game with himself, as he worked Minseok over with his mouth. ‘Take what you want,’ he had said. Apparently that meant any noise or movement too. But the cock in his mouth was hard as granite and leaking at the tip, so Jongdae knew all he had to do was push past Minseok’s self-control.

Exhale and push forward, past the panicky bit that made his eyes water, because he knew that once he arched in and got Minseok down his throat, he’d swallow involuntarily – and there it was, not quite choking, but the motion made Minseok hiss, and his legs tensed.

Pull back, sucking hard, tongue curled up firm along the underside: Jongdae heard the sheets rustle as Minseok clenched his other fist.

He pressed in with his lips as hard as he could, adding a busy tongue to the mix, pulling hard on the tip, then let go and leaned back.

Minseok gave one short groan. Jongdae grinned and looked up. Minseok was staring down, eyes wide, lips parted, looking gorgeous even in the dark.

Jongdae reached up and grasped Minseok’s spit-slick cock in one hand. Minseok’s eyebrows drew together. He put his hand on Jongdae’s shoulder. Dug his fingers in when Jongdae leaned forward again. He set a rhythm designed to give Minseok no space to breathe, pumping with a tight fist and bobbing his head in time with as much suction as he could keep up.

When he heard Minseok’s breath speed up, he lifted his other hand to slide it lightly over the soft skin of Minseok’s balls, until he could press back with two fingers, squeeze with his palm, and dive in again to fill his mouth.

Minseok gave a choked little cry, and Jongdae sped up even faster, sucking so hard his jaw ached. But it was after only a minute or so that he felt Minseok stretch his chest upward, both hands now gripping his shoulders, and he spurted hot into the back of Jongdae’s mouth.

Victory.


	18. Xiumin

And so Xiumin learned that Jongdae was a man who, when invited to take, would give. Left spent from the pleasure of Jondage emptying him, he made no protest when Jongdae rose from his knees, pushed him backward, and straddled him on the bed, running his hands up and down Xiumin’s chest.

To be vulnerable – to allow. He could recall plenty of times when he had had his pleasure using someone’s mouth. It had taken everything in him not to grab Jongdae’s head, not to thrust, not to _use._

Those times, when he had had his pleasure, he had been done, wanting only to leave. Hating the niceties of reclothing, or payment, or pretending to care enough to give out a working phone number. Awkward. Tiresome.

But Jongdae, sitting on him, warm hands on his chest, was different: Xiumin knew that if he examined this difference too closely, it would frighten him. Better instead to simply be in the moment. To accept what this man would give him and see what happened.

“Okay, hyung?”

“Better than,” Xiumin said, sliding his hands up Jongdae’s warm thighs.

The room was so dark that he could see only a vague outline of his body when Jongdae arched his back and sighed as Xiumin grasped his cock, but he could feel it.

He wanted Jongdae to lean down and kiss him, but he had said that it was Jongdae’s night to take. He wanted – he wanted. He hardly knew what he wanted, other than all of it.

Jongdae leaned down and kissed him. It was sweet and needy and sloppy. Xiumin stroked him slowly, felt his breath go shallow.

“I want,” Jongdae said. “Hyung, can I?”

The way his hands drifted down toward Xiumin’s ass, the way he asked without actually asking, his voice high and urgent – it made it easy for Xiumin to say yes.

“It’s been a long time,” he said. “Please go slowly.”

A very long time, since he had allowed anyone to have him at their mercy.

Jongdae paused, then cupped Xiumin’s jaw in his warm hands, kissed him slowly, deeply.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

It took effort, at first, to lie still and allow. To let his legs fall open and let Jongdae tease him with the lightest of touches, until he shifted his impatience, and Jongdae laughed, kissed him under the ear. One finger in was nothing he didn’t do for himself on rare occasions, except that Jongdae’s fingers were somewhat longer, and he set a slow, perfectly steady rhythm that, while feeling marvelous, made Xiumin plant one foot on the bed and cant his hips, chasing more.

“I thought you said take it slow, hyung,” Jongdae said, his voice low in Xiumin’s ear, but with laughter in it.

Xiumin growled and turned to catch Jongdae’s lower lip in his teeth. The second slicked-up finger was enough burn to make him grit his teeth. Jongdae stilled his hand, working Xiumin’s neck with his mouth until Xiumin was arching his chin for more, then returning to that same slow, maddening rhythm that was so good but so far away from enough.

Jongdae’s breath was shallow and rapid, and he was like a furnace next to Xiumin. But still he kept that steady pace. When Xiumin exhaled, he caught a flash of smile in the dim light, and Jongdae twisted his fingers, moving them slightly apart. Xiumin lost himself in the sensation of it, feeling his body gradually relax, making room for those fingers to drive deeper, making room for the renewed effort of a third. He sweated with it, the stretch and the too-slow motion, Jongdae’s mouth on his neck and chest, Jongdae’s cock pressed up against his thigh.

Enough with patience. Xiumin sat up, and the sudden emptiness made him even more impatient, hauling Jongdae up until he was sitting up against the headboard.

“This is slow?” Jongdae laughed.

Xiumin shut him up with one swipe of a slick hand. His slippery fingers fumbled with the condom, then he slicked that up too and raised himself up, hands on Jongdae’s shoulders.

“Hyung, don’t hurt yourself,” Jongdae said when Xiumin hissed at this new, wider stretch.

“I’m not.”

Jongdae’s hands were warm against his skin – one at his hip, one kneading the juncture of shoulder and neck while Xiumin lowered himself. He sat flush in Jongdae’s lap for a minute, getting used to the feeling of being so full that he could hardly breathe, waiting for the too-muchness to ease up.

Jongdae leaned in to kiss him, his hands moving restlessly, his mouth eager.

“Min,” he said, barely above a whisper, “Minseok, god.”

Xiumin moved – slowly at first, trying to match the same rhythm that Jongdae had used on him, bouncing steadily up and down until his thighs ached and Jongdae was whining “hyung” repetitively.

Jongdae reached for his cock, and Xiumin grabbed his arms, pressing them back along the top of the headboard, and drove down harder, faster. He rolled his hips as he moved, so that Jongdae briefly struggled against his hold and cried out.

Of course, this also dragged Jongdae’s cock against his own prostate, so from there it was no longer a matter for thought or intent, but only bodies moving toward release. Jongdae’s eyebrows were drawn together, and he leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed, his breath as harsh as Xiumin’s, his beautiful neck straining. Xiumin watched him, felt his movements grow erratic, watched his head toss back and forth. He drove downward and squeezed hard, and Jongdae tried to move against his hold and his weight, but ended up instead shuddering, giving one long, wavering cry.

Beautiful.

When he caught his breath, Jongdae lifted his head, put his arms around Xiumin, and kissed him until he was the one gasping.

“Hyung. Don’t you think it’s kind of rude to tell me I’m in charge and then totally take over?”

Xiumin went stiff, which made Jongdae laugh and lean forward until they both tipped over, with him on top.

“I’m just teasing you, hyung,” he said, then, “and I need to take care of this for you, it’s unfair.”

Xiumin put his hand around Jongdae’s wrist.

“Give it a minute,” he said.

It was less time than he would have liked, to lie still and savor the burn in his legs, how well-used he felt. Jongdae was restless, fussing with the condom, seemingly unable to find a way to wrap himself around Xiumin that was sufficiently comfortable.

There was only one thing for it. Xiumin was forced to haul him into the shower and fuck between his thighs, pulling yet another orgasm out of Jongdae along with his own.

“Is that finally enough for you?” Xiumin asked afterward, when Jongdae was sweet and smiling while Xiumin washed his hair.

Jongdae grinned at him.

“You’re going to have to stop being so hot and listening to everything I say like it’s actually interesting,” he said.

“Ah, is that all?”

“And maybe stop being ridiculously good in bed. That’d help too.”

“Well. I’m not sure I can do anything about that,” Xiumin said.

He leaned Jongdae’s head back under the water, shielding his eyes from the shampoo. This man. This beautiful man with his smiles and his teasing, who only found his way to being quiet finally back in bed, lying in Xiumin’s arms.

 

 

It was still dark when something buzzed on the floor and Jongdae stretched beside him, kissed him quickly.

“I have to go to work,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

Xiumin tried to shake sleep from his head.

“I’ll drive you.”

“Nope,” Jongdae said, pushing him back against the pillow. “There’s no point in making you suffer for my ridiculous schedule. Go back to sleep, Min. Cuppa’s just a few blocks away. Stop by later and I’ll sneak you a free muffin.”

Xiumin was able to hold onto him for another couple small kisses, and he watched through mostly closed eyes while Jongdae crouched around, looking for his clothes by the light of his phone.

“Pick them up later,” he said.

There was enough light to catch Jongdae’s smile.

When his own alarm went off later, the text waiting for him read,

“remind me not to go to sleep with wet hair again, I look like a bird tried to nest on my head”

It was the best start he’d had to a day in years. Later that morning, when the large bouquet and jewelry box arrived at Sooyoung-ssi’s desk, she looked in the box, then grinned full out at him through the glass walls, giving him two thumbs up. Xiumin was certain he had never seen her smile so broadly before.

He headed for the roof garden not long after that, knowing that Jongdae would be traveling from work to school, hoping the purple phone would ring. He was just sitting on one of the tasteful concrete benches and wishing he’d brought sunglasses when it did.

"Hyung. I’ve been informed that my birthday party is this Saturday.”

“Appropriate, since that’s the day of.”

“Eyyy, don’t make me feel weird, I’m trying to invite you.”

Xiumin found himself smiling. He briefly tried to be cautious, but all his good sense appeared to have fled in the face of the pleasant soreness of his ass and an unaccustomed sense of contentment.

“Of course I’ll be there,” he said.

“You will? Everybody’s going to be there, it’ll be pretty loud –“

“Jongdae. I am not going to miss your birthday party.”

“Hyung.”

The one word had enough warmth in it to brighten the entire day.

He shuttled personal belongings to the new apartment over several nights, already missing their usual Thursday night while Jongdae made up work hours from two missed Saturdays in a row. It had barely been a month since they’d met, and already one missed evening made a hole in the week.

Saturday evening Xiumin dressed with the intent of distracting the guest of honor, wearing Baekhyun’s “ass jeans” with a pair of low boots and a loose black silk shirt that left his lower neck exposed. He left his hair down, set a small earring dangling from the long-neglected hole in his earlobe. It would do.

The norebang was in a nicer part of town but was itself much more spare than the party rooms he was used to. And of course, there were no companions available for hire. Xiumin could hear Jongdae’s loud, high laugh from several doors away, the volume increasing as he pushed open the door with his hip.

The dancer roommate, Jongin, was not quite as tall as expected but even more staggeringly handsome in person.

“Are you sure you’re in the right room?” he asked, but took the box Xiumin handed him.

Then he looked in the box and said,

“Champagne and sushi. Are you an angel?”

“Hyung!” Jongdae yelled, rushing over to grab his arm.

“Wait. You’re the boyfriend?”

Xiumin didn’t miss how Jongdae’s ears turned red at that, and he looked at the floor.

“Minseok,” he said, nodding.

“Jongdae,” Jongin said. “Have you looked at him?”

“What?” Jongdae said, laughing again.

“He’s gorgeous. And he brought _champagne and sushi_ , Jongdae. You can’t ever break up with him.”

This encouraging start set the tone for the evening. Jongdae’s friends seemed to take him in stride, with enough compliments on his appearance to turn a lesser man’s head. There was only one comment that did so, however.

“Hyung,” Jongdae whispered in his ear while his roommates unpacked the sushi, “you look good enough to _lick.”_

Xiumin laughed.

“Been at the liquor already, have we?”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.”

Xiumin pitched his voice low and blinked slowly.

“Behave yourself and perhaps I’ll let you lick me later.”

Jongdae gave a full-body shudder, then grinned.

More people arrived – first the other dancer, Sehun, and a few others from the dance school, including one young man who looked enough like Jongin that they could be related, and they promptly attached themselves to one another for the rest of the evening. A couple of people from the ratty clothing store came, all bearing liquor bottles or food boxes. Jongdae’s enormous roommate was already busy with the control panel for the music.

It was tricky when the boy and girl from the tea shop arrived as part of another group. Over the course of several introductions, Jongdae had stopped stumbling over the phrase “my boyfriend,” so it came out smoothly as the pair of them looked at him, ready to smile, then both narrowing their eyes.

“Wait a second,” the boy said.

“Hold on,” the girl said, grinning. “Dae! This is the scary hot dude! I mean, he’s dialed down the scary and put the hot up to like four hundred, but this is the same guy!”

Damn.

“The same – what?”

“The guy who found your backpack that day you lost it?”

“Really?” Jongdae was staring at him, eyes wide.

Xiumin shrugged for want of any more sensible reaction.

“Hold on,” Jongdae said, and Xiumin could see him putting the equation together.

This was a conversation he didn’t want to have in public.

Then Jongdae tilted his head slightly, frowning just a little bit.

“Man, that’s spooky,” the girl said, and shivered. “It’s like fate!”

Jongdae nodded, just the slightest bit, and took Xiumin’s hand. Xiumin breathed, let go some of the tension that had been building in his shoulders.

“Spooky my ass,” Jongdae said. “It’s awesome!”

“Oh, no, it totally is,” the girl said. “I’m sorry, that was so rude. I’m Amber.”

Jongdae milled around, greasing conversations between groups until talk flowed as smoothly as the liquor, currently being poured out by Sehun behind the counter.

“Hiding behind a protective barrier?” Xiumin asked while Sehun poured an amount of moderately good champagne into a plastic cup that would make a sommelier blanch.

The young man’s smile completely erased the bitchy expression on his face.

“I hate small talk,” he said. “And I’m not much of a drinker, so I’m the designated driver. Might as well do something until the dancing starts.”

He looked over to where Jongdae was currently fending off what looked like attempts at tickling by Key and several of Jongdae's fellow students.

“And I like Dae almost as much as his ridiculous roommates do, so I guess this is the point where I have to be like ‘you’d better be good to him or else’ blah blah blah.”

“I certainly mean to,” Xiumin said.

Sehun rolled his eyes.

“God, you’re not supposed to answer that seriously! Gross, hyung, just for that you have to have more champagne. Go away and stop bugging the bartender.”

Cute.

He hadn’t been sitting to one side for long before Jongdae joined him, worming around and wriggling obnoxiously until Xiumin slung his arm over Jongdae’s shoulder, at which point Jongdae drank half of what was left in the cup of champagne.

“Your friends seem nice,” Xiumin said.

“You say that now. Once the volume goes up, you might change your mind.”

Jongdae leaned his head on Xiumin’s shoulder and looked up at him. From across the room, his roommate Chanyeol was smiling at them like some benevolent mountain.

“So hyung. You found my backpack at Cuppa that day?”

Xiumin crossed his legs. Better a quiet fight behind insincere smiles than a shouting match, he supposed.

“Yes.”

“You put money in my planner.”

“I did.”

Jongdae sat up and turned to face him, one eyebrow lifted. But not, Xiumin thought – hoped – looking genuinely angry.

“You sent me that new backpack?”

Xiumin nodded.

“Why?”

He risked going with honesty.

“The other one looked to be at the end of its lifespan.”

“So you what? Got my address from my planner?”

Xiumin nodded.

“And you kept sending me food why?”

Xiumin could remember less uncomfortable times at the other end of a rival’s gun. For the first time, he remembered that time when the former dragon of Seoul had had him tied to a chair and tortured for a day with something almost like fondness.

Jongdae poked him.

“I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “It was just as easy to order multiples of what I was having.”

“So let me get this right,” Jongdae said. “You found my backpack at work, thought it looked ratty and sent me a new one. Then you came to check me out and sent me pizzas so we could, like, eat together without eating together. Then we started going out. And then you sent me clothes so we could _match_ on our date.”

He definitely felt like a bug on the end of a pin.

“Yes?”

“Hyung,” Jongdae said. “You are _so weird_. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s all romantic in a deeply strange way, and it was really fun to have a secret admirer, but so, so, _so_ weird.”

Relief made Xiumin drain the cup and give a giddy breath.

“I don’t regret it,” he said. “You look marvelous in blue.”

“Ugh, you’re awful, and I like you so much,” Jongdae said, smacking his arm and snatching the cup to go for a refill.

Xiumin took the moment alone to compose himself. To have been braced for an argument and be presented instead with “I like you so much” felt like whiplash.

He was – happy about it. He was simply happy in a way he couldn’t recall feeling in his adult life. He couldn’t even make himself bother with worry about the future, in this moment, watching Jongdae try not to spill his drink while bent over laughing at something Sehun said.

“Yah, boyfriend!” Sehun yelled when he saw Xiumin watching. “Cake!”

Even the cake – provided by the baker who supplied pastries for Cuppa – was delicious, and Xiumin prevented Amber trying to sneak a forkful off his plate by stuffing half his slice in his face at once, to general hilarity.

Imagine that. Himself the object of general hilarity.

Perhaps this was who Minseok was. Or could be.

After cake the singing started. Jongdae’s friends were astonishingly musical. The dancers among them seemed to know every idol choreo, and Key was almost as good a singer as Jongdae (not that he was biased). The strange happiness propelled him up to the front once, before a room of hanging jaws that hung even lower by the time he was done with his several-years-old song selection.

“And he can sing?” Key said. “This is unfair.”

Jongdae was staring at him with open lust.

“Next song rap,” Chanyeol said, “I call Minseok.”

He gave in to that one, and to one duet with Amber, who threatened to stand on him if he refused, but sat out the rest of the evening while the songs got progressively more ambitious and the lyrics less precise.

Very late, when Jongdae and Sehun had collapsed into a giggling pile over a popular girl group song and Taemin and Jongin were sleeping, curled up together like two halves of a puzzle, Chanyeol sat down by him. His face was red, and it had been a while since he’d been up in front singing, so Xiumin put it down to drink.

“What are you getting Dae for his birthday?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“I was thinking a shopping trip.”

Chanyeol nodded, and Xiumin watched him gather up his thoughts from their diverse locations.

“His winter coat is really crappy. He froze all last winter,” Chanyeol said eventually.

“That’s useful to know, thank you.”

Chanyeol stared at him intently for several uncomfortable moments.

“I can see why Dae’s so smiley all the time,” he said, tilting his head to one side with just enough of a shake to move his hair and showing a great many teeth.

Xiumin remembered the fondness with which Jongdae spoke of Chanyeol and tried not to put anything ugly behind the flirting. But whatever his face did, it made Chanyeol shout with laughter. Just as Jongdae reached them, Chanyeol put his arm around Xiumin’s neck and pulled him close.

“Dae,” he said in a pleading voice. “I love him.”

“You love everybody,” Jongdae said.

“I know, but Dae! I really, really love him.”

Xiumin extricated himself from the embrace.

“Look at him!” Chanyeol said. “He’s perfect. He’s like five boyfriends in one! He walked in the door, and I thought ‘now there’s a dude who can wear a pair of jeans,’ if you know what I mean. And then with his mouth full of cake, he looks like a dumpling! I never saw anything so cute in my life! And he can sing! And look at him now, he’s so _severe,_ I’m developing a daddy kink while I’m sitting here, and I’m not sure I even know _how_ to be a good boy. Look, look at this!”

He pulled Xiumin’s hand to his and compared sizes.

“Look at his teeny little hand! But I still know he could totally choke me out, oh my god.”

Xiumin felt certain that was true.

“Stop grossing everybody out, Chanyeol,” Jongdae said.

“Please, Dae,” Chanyeol said, rolling around on the bench like a puppy. “Please let me be in your relationship too, please please I love him pleeeeeease.”

“No way!”

“Pleeeeease!”

“Ugh, stop it.”

“Pleeeeeease,” Chanyeol said, looking up at Xiumin.

He said,

“Perhaps in the future,”

just for the expression of outrage on Jongdae’s face and his shocked “hyung!”

“Hyung,” Chanyeol said, spreading his hand out on his chest. “Oh god, that’s so sexy.”

Sehun kicked him.

“And on that disgusting note, I’m driving these assholes home,” he said.

Xiumin looked around, noted how glassy Jongdae’s glare at Chanyeol was, and realized that he and Sehun were the only two sober ones in the room.

“Do you need any help?”

“Nah, Yeollie’s easily led even when he’s sober, which is probably why he’s _like that,_ ” Sehun said. “And I’ll just duct tape Taemin and Nini together and strap them to the roof of the car. They’ll never even notice.”

“It’s true,” Jongdae slurred.

“So you take the birthday boy … wherever,” Sehun said. “Maybe not home, though, since it’ll be full of people in about half an hour.”

Xiumin helped Sehun pack his car with the gifts and leftover food. Chanyeol only tried to cling to him a little bit when he buckled the young man into the passenger seat while Sehun guided two sleepy ballet dancers into the back.

“I’m paying the room bill,” he said, and Sehun grinned.

“Out of this entire group of jerks, I’m the only one who won’t argue with you on that one. Thanks, hyung.”

Jongdae was drowsing on a bench after the bill had been paid.

“Hyung,” he said when Xiumin reached for him, placing his fingers on the bare skin at the base of Xiumin’s throat. “Hyung.”

It being technically a public place, Xiumin allowed him only one kiss. Jongdae dozed off again in the car on the way back to the apartment, standing unsteadily in the elevator, but leaning heavily on Xiumin once they were inside.

“Shoes off,” Xiumin said.

“Hyung, I’ll take whatever you want off.”

“Shoes first.”

He was adorable. It was like struggling with a warm and enthusiastic eel. Well. An eel with an attitude problem.

“Water.”

“Hyuuuuung!”

“Water.”

and

“Brush your teeth.”

“No, see, I’ll brush my teeth after, because –“

Xiumin held out the toothbrush and stood firm until Jongdae wilted.

Getting his clothes off was easy, until Xiumin stopped at his underwear.

“Ah, hyung, you want me to do a striptease.”

He couldn’t help laughing, which made Jongdae pout, which only made him laugh more.

“Get in bed, Jongdae.”

“But hyung. It’s my birthday! I don’t get birthday sex?”

“You’re drunk.”

“But _hyung._ ”

“Birthday sex tomorrow,” Xiumin said, relenting and kissing on that bottom lip a little, given that it was protruding so far.

“You’re a very mean hyung.”

“The meanest.”

Jongdae wriggled like a small child.

“I can’t believe you’re not going to fuck me for my birthday!”

Xiumin cupped Jongdae’s lovely face in his hands and kissed him until he stopped writhing around and being silly.

“I am going to fuck you for your birthday,” he said. “Tomorrow. When you’re sober.”

Jongdae blinked up at him, lips parted and shiny. Then he plucked at Xiumin’s shoulders.

“We can make out a little bit, though, right?”

Xiumin laughed.

“We can make out a little bit.”


	19. Jongdae

There were so many awesome things about waking up: (1) he didn’t have a hangover, (2) Minseok’s bed was really big and super comfortable, (3) he had the whole day off from everything and no school assignments due for a couple of days, and (4) Minseok Minseok Minseok.

Who slid into bed not long after Jongdae stretched himself awake and handed over a mug of coffee. Heaven.

Birthday sex part the first was in the shower, Minseok on his knees, putting that amazing mouth to use until Jongdae had to brace himself against the walls or risk falling over. The acoustics in the bathroom were impressive, and Jongdae hoped the soundproofing was good, or the neighbors would hate him. But Minseok pushed Jongdae’s hands away from himself.

“Oh no,” he said. “Not me. I want to be thinking about it all day, so when I take you later, I’ll have the proper inspiration.”

One of these times, Minseok was going to take his breath away so completely that he got brain damage.

“Please wear those jeans again, as often as possible,” Jongdae said as they got dressed, receiving the broad, gummy grin he hoped for.

“You even cook?” he asked from his seat at the breakfast bar shortly after, while Minseok fried eggs.

“Not really. I can only make a few things passably.”

Jongdae looked down at the perfectly fried egg sitting atop his bowl of rice.

“Sure,” he said.

He assumed that “a few things passably” meant like a hundred expertly prepared dishes. The kimchi, however, came from a jar. It was fine. For kimchi from a jar.

“I’ll bring you some of my mom’s kimchi,” he said.

Minseok paused, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, and Jongdae couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“I would be happy to have some,” Minseok said after a minute, as solemnly as if Jongdae had offered up, oh, his first-born child or something.

On the inside, Jongdae flopped down on the floor and screeched. On the outside, he limited himself to a grin that elicited a return eye roll.

“I’d like to take you shopping for your birthday,” Minseok said, fending off Jongdae’s attempt to wash the dishes with several sharp pokes and one swift slap to Jongdae’s ass.

“A, you don’t have to do that, hyung, and B, now I’m gonna be all lopsided.”

Minseok raised one eyebrow, but smacked the other butt cheek. Nice.

“I’m aware that I don’t have to,” he said. “Nonetheless, I want to.”

“I was kind of thinking of a day in bed.”

Jongdae tried the tilted-head grin that usually worked on Chanyeol well enough to get olives added to a pizza.

“Oh,” Minseok said. “You’ll be thinking about bed all day, trust me.”

He really was the evilest evil boyfriend in the history of evil boyfriends – “helping” Jongdae on ( _on_ , the indignity) with his shirt accompanied some light groping, after which he stepped out of arm’s reach. Staring at him in the elevator until Jongdae’s mouth was literally watering. Batting away Jongdae’s hand in the car with a wicked smile and a hum.

Evil.

And every time he went into a changing room, carrying an armload of things Minseok had plopped into his hands, and stripped down, he did think about it, about Minseok’s hands removing his clothes. He’d step out into the shop and Minseok would look him up and down with that intense, assessing gaze, and his cock would twitch. Minseok would approach him to smooth a collar or tuck a shirt in at the front, and Jongdae would shiver. Then Minseok would smile.

Totally evil.

(Totally awesome.)

They ate lunch at a cute little sandwich shop that had an actual life-size fake tree in the middle of it. Jongdae had mostly been able to worm his way out of any purchases too excessive (just some shirts and a couple pairs of really nice [read: really tight] jeans), but in the afternoon, Minseok made him try on the nicest coat he had ever seen – black knee-length wool cut slim, but with a red quilted waist-length liner that zipped out and could be worn as its own jacket. It looked so good, and Jongdae could remember so clearly how cold he’d been all last winter, that he shuffled his feet in front of the mirror, feeling obligated to turn it down but not wanting to.

Minseok walked up to him and popped the collar, smoothed his hand along one shoulder.

“I’m afraid I must insist on this one,” he said so softly that the shop assistant couldn’t hear, and that Jongdae felt himself leaning in to hear. “It makes me desperate to kiss you, you look so delectable.”

Really dirty tricks. But a really great birthday gift.

Minseok sent him ahead into another restaurant at dinner with the excuse of putting all the bags into the car. He took a lot longer than Jongdae expected, long enough that Jongdae went through the menu four times, which had the unfortunate result of making him want to order everything. He stared out the window, drank a whole glass of wine.

But when Minseok rounded the corner, Jongdae got to watch him walk the length of the block. He had his hands in his pockets and that secretive facial expression he often wore, as if he were thinking hard about something important. He looked up at some noise outside that Jongdae couldn’t hear, then tossed his head so his hair hung to the side.

Jongdae’s breath caught in his throat.

Then Minseok looked over and caught his eye. His crooked smile had so much warmth in it that Jongdae felt his eyes well up a little even as he returned the smile.

God, he was so beautiful.

Jongdae remembered their conversation about the whole secret admirer thing, and upon further thought, it was just typical: a little weird, and a little domineering, but generous. He felt so lucky.

Minseok sat across from him and slid a small black box across the table with a nod. Inside, he found a single earring – a small sapphire with a silver teardrop hanging pointy side down beneath it.

Jongdae looked up and saw its match hanging in Minseok’s ear.

“Hyung,” he said, hearing the burr in his own voice.

He scrambled to put the earring in his earlobe in case it turned out to be a trick or not actually real, or something.

“How did you know my ear’s pierced?”

“I pay attention,” Minseok said. “Your left ear is pierced. You have two freckles bracketing your left collarbone. You have an old scar from a deep wound above your right knee.”

Jongdae blinked several times. He hadn’t thought about that scar in years. It was from when he was eight, and his brother had pushed him so he fell onto a metal toy dump truck and had to get stitches.

“And,” Minseok said, “you have a very charming freckle on the left underside of your cock.”

“Oh, do I?” Jongdae said, and found it necessary to drink the rest of the wine in his glass all at once.

This guy. _Damn._

“I guess I’ll have to trust you on that one, seeing as how you’re a man of your word and all,” Jongdae said when he found a little scrap of voice lying around somewhere.

“Mmmm,” Minseok said.

It was a new version of The Minseok Hum, and very dirty.

Minseok took mercy on him for the rest of dinner, backing off the crazy-making flirting so that Jongdae could actually eat and have two coherent thoughts together. They traded plates back and forth, like they had on their first date, and Jongdae was really happy to see Minseok’s genuine smile when he talked about the party.

“They weren’t too much? I know we’re really loud.”

“Maybe Chanyeol,” Minseok said with a grin, and Jongdae snickered.

“He’s so ridiculous,” Jongdae said. “But you can’t even hate him for it. He’s had like a million one-night stands, but if you ever ask him about it, he can remember and say something nice about every single one of them. He just really likes almost everybody.”

“I can’t even imagine what that’s like,” Minseok said, pursing his lips in way that made Jongdae want to pinch his face, even knowing what the outcome of _that_ would be.

“You say it like that, and I feel lucky you even give me the time of day,” Jongdae said.

“I plan to shortly give you a great deal more than that.”

Jongdae thunked his head down on the table, and Minseok laughed.

“But seriously, hyung, you have a great voice!”

Minseok waved his hand.

“Don’t wave your hand at me, Minseok, I practically have a master’s degree in music, I actually know what I’m talking about.”

He did that little pursed-lips thing again, it was awesome.

“I do like to sing,” he said finally, with a little shrug.

“You never studied it?”

“Oh no. It wouldn’t ever have occurred to me.”

There was something about the way he said it, and his habitual seriousness. The way he had stared down that convenience store cashier, and how Amber and Key had called him “scary.”

“You had a rough childhood, hyung?”

And Minseok glanced at him quickly, then looked out the window, his expression blank.

“I did,” he said after a pretty long pause. “It’s not my favorite topic of conversation, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, hyung.”

Minseok did look him in the eye then.

“I don’t want you to be offended, Jongdae.”

“I’m not, I swear.”

The dessert menu was delivered to them at just the right moment to break that up before Jongdae could make it even more awkward by apologizing too much.

“Let’s pick two,” Minseok said, once they’d noticed that all the options sounded amazing.

“Hyung, you gotta stop feeding me all the time, I’m gonna get fat.”

Minseok shook his head.

“You have a long way to go before that’s even in the realm of possibility,” he said.

“Yeah, but I haven’t had a hungry day since we started dating. It’s been great, I hadn’t realized –“

He hadn’t realized how he was running his damn mouth, is what. He didn’t need anybody pitying him, least of all his brand-new boyfriend. It was fine. He only had one and a half more semesters, and then he’d get a full-time job, and things would be easier. It was totally fine.

When Jongdae finally worked up the nerve to look up, it was to see Minseok waving back the server with one elegant gesture, but his eyes were on Jongdae – thoughtful, serious. But not pitying. He thought.

“Why does it bother you that you said that?” Minseok asked.

That wasn’t even in the top twenty responses Jongdae would’ve guessed.

“I don’t – we just started officially dating like five minutes ago. You don’t need to hear about my problems. I just – have a lot going on, it’s not any worse than what tons of other people do every day. It’s fine. I shouldn’t complain.”

“What does the length of time we’ve been dating have to do with it?”

Jongdae wished desperately for a way to go back three minutes in time and tape his own mouth shut.

“The beginning’s supposed to be the fun part,” he said, unable to keep the misery out of his voice. “And it’s my birthday.”

“Jongdae,” Minseok said, in that tone that always made him take a deep breath.

And, as usual, the deep breath helped.

“I want to know about this. Because I want to know about you. It doesn’t matter that this is new: I’m not about to be easily put off because you have an imperfect life. So do I.”

Jongdae couldn’t even think what to say to that.

“But if you would prefer to table it for now and order dessert, it _is_ your birthday. Or was, yesterday, but I suppose that’s close enough.”

He said the last bit with a hand wave and an arched eyebrow that made Jongdae snort. Jongdae guessed his smile was probably a little wobbly around the edges, but he meant it.

“I would really appreciate that.”


	20. Xiumin

To charm and flirt Jongdae back into cheerfulness was another pleasure added to the day’s long list. Jongdae didn’t make him work hard for it: he was gratifyingly easy to fluster with suggestive comments and intent gazes. Two excellent desserts didn’t hurt, either, even if being in a public place meant that Xiumin couldn’t smear them on him and lick them off, as he wanted.

But watching Jongdae close his eyes and tip his chin back when he took a bite was more than enough to heat Xiumin’s blood to a simmer. That when he did so, the earring in his left ear caught the light only heightened this. All day, they had had the barest of touches, with Jongdae in a parade of flattering clothes, standing in front of him with a shyness that Xiumin hadn’t seen from him before, cheeks pink and eyes downcast. It was intensely alluring, as was the way he had grinned down at the bags, and how he would tilt his head over his shoulder to smile at Xiumin as they walked.

The way he had fumbled with the earring, like he thought Xiumin would take it away.

He blessed his former self’s choice to get tinted windows on the car, as well as his slightly more recent former self’s choice to park facing a dead end and a long-emptied office building. It meant he could finally pull Jongdae to his mouth.

He placed Jongdae’s hand on his leg before he backed out of the parking space. Jongdae obliged him for the whole way back to the apartment, running his fingers lightly up and down Xiumin’s thigh without ever actually moving quite high enough, turned sideways in the seat, staring with half-lidded eyes. At one stoplight, Xiumin looked over and saw that Jongdae was partially hard already, and his desire flared. The car jumped forward at the green light with a squeal of tires, and Jongdae gave a low laugh.

“How many times will you come for me?” Xiumin asked while they were taking off their shoes.

Jongdae dropped the bags he was holding and stared.

“I don’t – know?” he said.

“I won’t settle for less than three.”

Jongdae made a small, delicious noise in his throat.

“Bedroom.”

Jongdae practically ran.

He followed more slowly, shedding clothing as he went. His hands were at his fly when he entered the bedroom to see Jongdae sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed, wearing an expression that looked excited but also a little wary.

He looked up and very obviously ogled Xiumin’s chest.

Inspiring.

Xiumin left his pants alone and strode forward, driving Jongdae into his back, mouth and hands busy and one thigh pressed so hard between Jongdae’s legs that he hissed and tilted his hips upward.

He thought he might never get tired of Jongdae’s eagerness, the way his hands moved over Xiumin’s skin as if he couldn’t decide where to touch. The way he would break a kiss to arch his head back and give a little moan that was almost a laugh.

Because they were still new to one another, Xiumin tested him, to see what would make Jongdae arch his head like that. What would make his hips twitch, or inspire him to whisper “hyung” as if pleading for help.

He liked when Xiumin dug his fingers into the little bit of flesh above his hip. Teeth applied to the hollow above his collarbone made him toss his head. Fingers teasing feather-light in the line of hair below his navel made his belly clench, and a stripe licked up his sternum made him sigh.

And when Xiumin covered him, grinding their hips together hard, kissing roughly along his neck, Jongdae writhed, hands pulling at his shoulders.

“Hyung,” he said, “hyung, wait, I-“

Xiumin drove harder with his thigh, ground against him faster, one fist in Jongdae’s hair, until Jongdae bucked up against him, eyes rolling back, teeth clenched.

When he sagged, Xiumin kissed him until he stopped twitching.

“That’s one,” he said.

Jongdae stared at him. He smacked Xiumin’s arm.

“Dammit, hyung, you’re the worst.”

“Oh really?” Xiumin said, grinding his hips again. “The worst?”

The response was a gratifying little groan.

The faces Jongdae made as he peeled off his sticky jeans were extremely amusing, and he complained the whole time.

“It’s strange, I’ve generally found that most people are happier after an orgasm.”

Jongdae stuck his tongue out.

Brat. Xiumin grabbed him and shut up the complaining with a kiss, letting the warm, wet towel he had fetched assist in starting the next round. He moved more slowly now, gentler, until Jongdae’s expression went soft but hungry.

“You’re not going to give me a little bit of a break?”

“No. You owe me two more.”

“Seriously hyung, you can’t-“

Xiumin pressed up and back. Jongdae inhaled sharply.

“Oh man, what have I gotten myself into?” he said.

“The more relevant question is what I’m getting into, but you know that answer,” Xiumin said.

“Oh my god, how can you sound like a college professor at a time like - shit, god, hyung!”

Xiumin was relatively sure Jongdae hadn’t even known that he had a bottle of lube close to hand. And a finger inserted quickly and dragged across one’s prostate without preparation was rather startling.

After that, he moved more slowly, giving Jongdae just enough time to recover, to want. To beg.

He was hard again by the second finger. By the third he was fucking himself on Xiumin’s hand.

“Please, Min.”

“You owe me something first.”

“I don’t think I -“

He broke off with a hiss when Xiumin spread his fingers.

“You can, Jongdae.”

He lifted Jongdae’s hand and sucked two of those lovely fingers into his mouth, biting on the tips.

Touch yourself," he said when he let Jongdae's hand go. "And look at me."

Jongdae flinched at the chill when Xiumin squeezed a bit of lube onto him – otherwise, he did as he was told, stroking himself with a loose fist, driving down to meet Xiumin's hand, biting his lip briefly, his eyes never leaving Xiumin's.

"There you go," Xiumin said when Jongdae's eyebrows drew together and he tried to look away, until Xiumin touched his chin.

His grip on himself tightened and his pace increased. Xiumin slowed his pace down, and Jongdae grimaced.

"Give it to me," Xiumin said, leaning in as far as he could while continuing to fuck Jongdae with his hand. "Let me see you."

"You have a thing for watching, hyung?" Jongdae said, his voice low, and with a crooked smile.

"I have a thing for watching you."

And it was a beautiful thing to see, the way his eyes widened in the effort to keep them locked on Xiumin's, the way he tossed his head and flushed all the way down to his chest as he cried out and clamped down hard around Xiumin's hand. Beautiful, the way he lay panting afterward, chest striped in his own come.

"That's two," Xiumin said, kissing away the feeble protest, moving his hand only sporadically until Jongdae started to shift restlessly.

Xiumin was so hard that he ached. It would take everything in him to hold back long enough to get that third orgasm out of Jongdae.

"Want you, Min," Jongdae rasped, fucking himself back down on Xiumin's hand.

Xiumin readied himself, and sighed with something like relief when he was finally inside. He lifted Jongdae’s leg and kissed the inside of his knee.

It was maddening - he wanted to move, to sate himself and his constant, driving desire for this man. But just as much, he wanted to tease Jongdae with every sensation possible, to make him scream and laugh and know he was wanted.

“Ungh, Min,” Jongdae said, shifting against him, teeth worrying his bottom lip.

Xiumin brought his mind back to the matter at hand, and the sweet pressure around his cock.

“Ready for me to move?”

“For forever.”

“So greedy,” Xiumin murmured.

He reached down to smear his hand across Jongdae’s sticky chest, then pressed Jongdae’s cock against his own belly - not grasping, but giving a little friction. He moved with slow thrusts, using his whole length. It was practically torturing himself, and after a little while of this, Jongdae was slowly growing hard again and moaning low in his throat almost constantly, his arms crossed over his face.

“Will you come for me again?”

“I - I - I don’t -“ Jongdae gasped, in time with his thrusts.

“I said, will you come for me?”

Xiumin drew nearly all the way and slammed back in to the hilt. Jongdae gave a sharp cry.

He needed a better angle. Jongdae made a small, unhappy noise when he pulled out, but eagerly responded when Xiumin leaned in to kiss him.

“We’re not done yet,” Xiumin murmured when Jongdae mouthed at his jaw.

“I know.”

“Are you ready?”

Jongdae pushed Xiumin’s hand lower, and yes – ready.

Xiumin stood, hauled Jongdae’s hips to the edge of the bed and up, until Jongdae’s legs were wrapped around his waist. Jongdae flailed a little, trying to find a place to put his arms. Xiumin burned even hotter to see him, up on his shoulders at an angle that made him almost helpless, his pale, thin chest mottled with red marks and come.

“Please,” Jongdae said.

Xiumin was more than happy to oblige. At this angle, he could slam into Jongdae, who started with more of those sharp cries but was soon moaning so brokenly that it sounded like sobs, punctuated with enough “more”s and “yes”es that Xiumin didn’t stop.

Didn’t want to stop. He wanted only to last just long enough, because he could feel his own orgasm gathering. Jongdae’s volume increased when Xiumin grasped his cock.

“Come on,” Xiumin said.

His hand moved in concert with his hips, the squeeze and heat of Jongdae’s ass was pulling pleasure out of him, thrust by thrust. It was too good. He wasn’t going to last.

“Hyung,” Jongdae gasped, “Min, right there, Min, god, Min.”

Xiumin found that he could hold out a little more, as Jongdae started to writhe, as he pounded the bed twice with one fist and his legs shuddered.

“Min, oh, Min please.”

“Yes.”

“Just a little more, please.”

And then Jongdae arched, with a sound akin to a scream and the barest trickle of come. He pulled his legs in until Xiumin could hardly move, the muscles of his ass squeezing hard, but by then Xiumin was gone too, hands gripping Jongdae’s thighs so tight they’d find marks later, his ears ringing with the force of his orgasm, up on his toes, silent because he momentarily forgot how to breathe.

There was nothing graceful in the way they collapsed. Xiumin pulled Jongdae close, whispering praise as soon as he caught his breath.

“You’re a sadist, hyung,” Jongdae said, his voice wrecked.

“I hope you mean that as a compliment.”

Jongdae rolled his head back and smiled, laying one hand on Xiumin’s cheek. Xiumin felt his chest grow tight.

“I absolutely do. Minseok.”

They had just enough energy to kiss, soft and sloppy.

“I’ve never before regretted my dislike of lying on dirty sheets,” Xiumin said, just as it was starting to bother him, which was long before any part of him wanted to move.

“Give me a month or so and I’ll be able to get up and help,” Jongdae said, his head nuzzled up close to Xiumin’s neck.

“If I change the sheets and you fill the tub, it would be an efficient use of our limited resources,” Xiumin said after another several minutes of necessary stillness.

“I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

“The tub’s big enough for two, Jongdae.”

Xiumin supposed he had asked for it, but the sudden cold space at his side was no less unpleasant because of it. And once he heard the water running, he felt obligated to hold up his side of the bargain. Of course, doing so meant a hot soak with his hot lover followed by sleeping in a properly clean bed, which would probably eventually seem worth it.

(It did.)


	21. Jongdae

“How can you move?” Jongdae muttered when Minseok’s alarm went off in the morning.

“Grudgingly,” Minseok said, nosing up under Jongdae’s ear with a warm mouth, hand curled over his hip. “No early shift this morning?”

“Nothing until eleven,” Jongdae said.

“Mmm, I’m envious.”

Jongdae found the sight of post-shower Minseok, in his little black briefs and his hair sticking up, sufficiently inspiring that he sat up and tried to actually wake up a little bit.

“I’m tempted to be late to work,” Minseok said.

“Yeah, I bet,” Jongdae said. “Me with my bed head and eye boogers. Must be amazing.”

Minseok climbed on him with a complete disregard for either of those or morning breath and kissed him until he had goosebumps.

“You are endlessly tempting,” he said, in that low voice that made everything sound like something out of a drama.

And yeah, maybe Jongdae giggled. It was early, he couldn’t help it, he was barely awake.

“Hang on, I’ll get up and walk out with you,” he said after Minseok had kissed him one more time and gotten back up.

“No, don’t bother.”

Minseok ran his fingers through Jongdae’s hair, making it easy to lie back and get comfy again.

“Stay here until you’re ready to get up.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“I’m sure I’ll enjoy thinking about you back here, lying in my bed.”

Jongdae pulled the covers up around his face to forestall any more embarrassing sounds coming out of his face. He watched Minseok dress, starting with an intensely sexy sleeveless undershirt that Jongdae definitely wanted to strip off of him at the first available opportunity. He disappeared into the bathroom and came back with fancy slicked-up hair. By the time he was done, he was in a three-piece suit that finally explained what Amber and Key had meant by “super scary.”

“That’s what you look like for work?”

Minseok looked down at himself.

“Why?”

“I’m frightened and turned on at the same time.”

Minseok ruined the effect by breaking out that cute, broad grin.

Once he woke up again, Jongdae padded around the apartment, toothbrush hanging from his mouth. He learned that Minseok was some kind of workaholic, if the general emptiness of his kitchen and bathroom cabinets were any indicator. He was, however, prepared for infinite sex, based on the contents of the nightstand.

Well, if that’s what it took to rescue Minseok from a life of acturarial drudgery, Jongdae would step up to the challenge. He was willing to be a giver.

After work and school, Chan and Jongin, being the best roommates in the entire country, used his unopened birthday gifts and leftover food as an excuse to have another party and sing to him all over again. This was accompanied by a ton of commentary on the hotness, niceness, usefulness, and oh yeah hotness of his boyfriend, of which Jongdae enjoyed every second – even more than the leftover cake.

"I can't believe Sehun let him pay for the room," Nini said.

This was news to Jongdae, but he wasn't surprised.

"Don't worry, he took it out of my hide," he said.

Jongin groaned, and Chanyeol stomped his feet, laughing until he fell over sideways.

"I can't wait until we're co-boyfriends!" he shouted.

"What?" Nini squeaked.

Jongdae beat on Chan a little bit. It was necessary, even though Jongdae knew Chan would never learn any better.

"Dae, you're going to have to get over this violently jealous streak, or our triad will never work out."

"Ugh, why are you like this?"

Chanyeol wrapped him up in a stifling hug that Jongdae knew he'd have to cause actual hurt to get out of. Sadly, Chan knew it too.

"Your outrage is so cute, Daedae, it makes me love you very much."

"Get _off_ me."

"Okay, future co-boyfriend."

So maybe only Jongin was one of the best roommates in the country.

His and Minseok's three-day-a-week schedule trucked along for a couple of weeks with the addition of frequent orgasms and the occasional hickey. Jongdae was more exhausted than ever, and he could barely keep up with which clothes were at which apartment, much less which ones were clean. The couch at home really suffered by comparison with Minseok’s enormous bed. He kept falling asleep over his study notes and mid-conversation with his roommates.

He was really, really happy. Way more tired and just as broke, but happy. He and Minseok talked about so much nonsense: Min’s hilariously old-fashioned taste in pop music, Jongdae’s schoolwork, how neither of them liked the floppy, bell-like sleeves half the women around them were wearing. The merits of snow crab versus shrimp. They flirted and laughed and fucked each other silly.

Jongdae was so smitten that he caught himself almost asking a dozen times for Minseok to come with him to Muan for Chuseok. But he chickened out at the last second.

“Will you tell your family about me?” Minseok asked, when they were wrapped around each other in the dark, sated and sleepy.

“Yeah,” Jongdae said, surprising himself a little. “Yeah, they can use all the happy news they can get.”

That made Minseok rise up on his elbows and put one hand to the side of Jongdae’s face.

“What does that mean?” he asked with so much gentleness that a tear rolled down Jondgae’s temple.

Minseok felt it, and wiped it away, gathered Jongdae close before he even had time to feel awkward.

“You don’t have to go if it’s hard,” Minseok said. “I’ll hole you up here with me and we won’t leave for the whole three days. You can tell your roommates you went and come here instead.”

Jongdae squeezed him and sniffed a little at this very weird but very nice offer.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I love them a lot. What makes it hard isn’t because we don’t get along, I swear. I’ll tell you about it, Min, but not in the middle of the night. Okay?”

“This is the second time you’ve put it off,” Minseok said, his hand softly stroking the side of Jongdae’s face.

“I know. It’s not anything for you to be worried about. We’ll talk about it before I go, for sure. All right?”

“All right.”

Jongdae hated the phrase “making love,” because it sounded so dumb, but the sleepy sex they had after this conversation was so slow and sweet that he wouldn’t have known what else to call it.

Things were so great that Jongdae was kind of waiting for the hiccup when it came, and it was such a teeny little one. Minseok called on the Tuesday before he was due to leave for Muan Thursday morning and tried to _cancel_.

“I’m sorry, Jongdae. I can’t miss this dinner. It’ll go late, and I won’t be fit company afterward.”

“So you want to miss out on seeing me before I go out of town for most of a week on the off-chance you’re going to be grumpy after your work dinner. That’s dumb, Min.”

“Jongdae –“

“Dude, I get it. I remember how you said you hate those things. So don’t you think it would be nicer to come home to your delightful and super handsome boyfriend, who would be more than happy to cheer you up?”

During the long pause that followed, Jongdae grinned, imagining the exasperation on Min's face.

“I suppose the company of my obnoxious yet adorable boyfriend would be more conducive to restoring my mood than an empty bed.”

So on the minus side, he was still getting hit with “adorable,” but on the plus side, he had the door code to Minseok’s apartment, which he was absolutely going to take advantage of while maybe respecting Minseok’s personal space. Probably.

Tuesday night he packed every shred of everything he needed for school, picked up a sandwich, and ensconced himself in Minseok’s living room with Sibelius playing over his portable speaker to help him be even smarter than usual. He got three response essays done and a good start on his next paper by 11:30, with still no word from Min.

He was dozing later, leaned up against the side of the sofa, when he heard the keypad. He kind of meant to call out, but he was still blinking sleep out of his eyes when Minseok stopped by the sofa. He looked exhausted, maybe a little drunk, and way unhappier than Jongdae had ever seen him before. Even the fancy suit and hair couldn’t make him look anything less than worn completely out. Jongdae reached out his arms.


	22. Xiumin

It was, even as such dinners went, particularly awful. Everyone was either keyed up about the coming holiday or annoyed at the impending interruption of their day-to-day business: by the end of the evening, Baekhyun had gleefully waded into several fights, ostensibly to break them up. Soon after, D.O. had waded less-gleefully in to pull Baekhyun out.

“Quit scowling, boss,” Baekhyun said, holding an ice-filled towel to his lip. “I’m gonna start thinking you worry about me.”

Xiumin could barely pretend to be interested in the endless boasting and profit-counting that passed for dinner conversation. The food was heavy and too rich, and he drank too much, simply to have something to do with his hands.

He didn’t like some of the grumbling the lower ranks did about the troubles they were having, even in areas that should’ve have been anywhere near Block B territory. But they’d lost a few people, and some of the more portable types of product. After one such conversation, he caught Suho’s eye and saw his concern mirrored.

He had spent so many years only among the citizens of this world that he had forgotten one defining characteristic, now brought to light by comparison with Jongdae and his friends: these people were all awful.

He supposed that, by extension, that probably meant he was also awful, but it didn’t make these people any easier to bear.

The one bright spot of the evening was when he was sitting briefly and gladly alone with yet another tumbler of whisky that he didn’t want, and one of their importers, Song Taejin, sat beside him. The man had started as an enforcer in the crowd just senior to Xiumin’s. He was a huge, ugly man who had had the good fortune to marry a beautiful and terrifying woman with a genius for smuggling who had lifted him off the streets and into the offices.

“I recognize that expression,” Song Taejin said. “You’ve got something better than this waiting for you at home.”

Xiumin raised his eyebrows, and Song Taejin smiled. It didn’t make him look any more handsome.

“I’m always surprised your wife doesn’t some to these,” he said.

Song Taejin laughed.

“My wife would eat us all for dinner. She has no patience for our nonsense, all this posturing. I’ve come to agree with her, but – “

He shrugged.

“Even if she did come, this is who I can’t wait to get home to see.”

He pulled a picture out of his breast pocket and handed it over. It showed a little girl, too young for school, with long hair drawn up into side ponytails, grinning while she held a stuffed giraffe.

“Your daughter?”

Song Taejin smiled again.

“My Misoo.”

“I didn’t know you had a child.”

“Well. Parenting isn’t exactly a proper topic of conversation when you’re busy unloading smuggled paintings off a pier at two am.”

Xiumin also hadn’t known that Song Taejin had a sense of humor.

“That’s very true.”

“We wouldn’t have had her if I hadn’t come over to the office side,” he said. “My wife would never have agreed if I were still on the streets.”

He peered over at Xiumin.

“You probably don’t know this, but we toasted you and Suho when she was born, because of that.”

What a thing to learn, in such a setting.

“I’m honored,” he said eventually.

“Ah, you should think about it,” Song Taejin said, putting the picture away. “Some time in the future, with that person making you wish you were home. The things I’ve learned, being a parent! I’ll tell you, even worse than this Block B business, I’m supposed to find Misoo a piano teacher. I have no idea where to even start.”

It was the one pleasant conversation in an otherwise dreary sea of crude and violent commentary, fending off several of the hired entertainment with whom he had played in the past, and endless, _endless_ politicking among people who wanted to curry his favor or stab him in the kidney, or both.

The fights started not long after this conversation. Xiumin took it as a cue to depart before his disgust and frustration led him to start swinging as well. That would be a hell of a way to fetch up in front of Jongdae, bleeding and bruised.

Baekhyun sidled up next to him while he waited for his driver, still grinning around his badly split lip.

“So this is nice,” he said, reaching toward Xiumin’s earring. “Acquired any other piercings I might like to know about?”

Xiumin tilted his head away; Baekhyun frowned and ran his fingers down Xiumin’s arm instead.

“Come back to the office with me, boss,” he said, low and quiet. “It’s been a while.”

Xiumin closed his eyes briefly. Baekhyun’s timing always tended toward the awful.

“No,” he said, and went for the clean kill. “I have someone waiting for me at home.”

He saw his blow hit, in Baekhyun’s wide eyes, and cursed himself for not having cut this off earlier. It struck him suddenly that their rare couplings in Xiumin’s office over the years could be counted as the closest thing he’d had to a relationship in his adult life before Jongdae. Baekhyun had been his regular partner, however infrequent, and Xiumin had never once bothered to think about whether that meant anything but an idle fuck – for either of them.

So it was true. He _was_ just as awful as the rest of them.

Baekhyun recovered, tossing his hair and smiling.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?” he said.

And maybe Baekhyun was awful too, which probably meant they deserved one another.

“I intend to be better than that to him,” Xiumin said.

That was even harder for Baekhyun, if the expression on his face was any indication. Despite the visible teeth, it in no way passed for a smile.

“Well, you’re the one missing out, boss,” he said finally, getting the tone almost right.

Xiumin was drunk enough that he brooded the entire way home – first in the company car to his ridiculous former building and then, once that car had left, by cab to Jongdae. Knowing how little he deserved Jongdae. Having been reminded how much wickedness surrounded him, how he steeped in it like those tea leaves, left too long and gone bitter and dark.

But there he was, half-asleep on the sofa, his lovely Jongdae. Who sat up, looked Xiumin over, and held out his arms. Xiumin sighed heavily, stripping off his jacket and tie, dropping cufflinks onto the floor, and pulling off his shirt. He basically fell over onto the sofa, landing with his head in Jongdae’s lap.

Jongdae put his hands in Xuimin’s hair, rubbing lightly. That was all it took for the worst of Xiumin’s unhappiness to ease. He hummed and wormed his arms around Jongdae’s waist.

“Terrible?”

“Absolute misery,” Xiumin said to Jongdae’s stomach.

Jongdae ran his fingers lightly around the edges of Xiumin’s tank, and Xiumin tightened his arms, pressing his face close.

“Did you get bad news, hyung?”

“No.”

He pulled at Jongdae’s shirt so he could get one hand underneath. Every point of contact with Jongdae’s skin made him feel more relaxed.

“Bad people.”

“Yah, that’s a hell of a thing to say about your coworkers,” Jongdae said, poking him in the shoulder.

There was the wave of discontent again. He could picture sitting up to explain, telling Jongdae all the very real reasons why his coworkers were terrible people, and himself as well. Jongdae pushing him onto the floor and walking out the door forever.

“Tell me something good,” he said, rolling over so he could look up at Jongdae’s face. “What did you do this evening?”

“Well, it was very exciting. I argued with two classmates online about motif versus theme in Bach’s cantata BWV thirty-eight, spun three brilliant paragraphs of nonsense making it sound like I actually care about compositional trends in Stravinsky’s late works, which I do not, and got a good start on a paper about how Bach and other Baroque composers used chromaticism compared with Romantic composers like Grieg.”

“It might be because you’re playing with my hair, but I didn’t understand any of that.”

 Jongdae grinned.

“I keep telling you, hyung, I am a giant nerd.”

“You are a perfectly sized nerd.”

Jongdae laughed down at him. Xiumin reached up to lace his fingers together with Jongdae’s, letting that laugh erase everything ugly from earlier in the evening.

“Did you eat?”

“I brought a sandwich over.”

“Was that enough? I can make you something more.”

Jongdae put his free hand on Xiumin’s chest and pressed him back down.

“No way, hyung. I ate plenty, and I can see how tired you are. You stay right where you are.”

He was content to lie here forever, certainly. And determined to live up to what he had said to Baekhyun. To be good to Jongdae.

“I just worry about you,” he said. “I keep thinking about when you said you used to go hungry, and I can’t stand the thought of it. If you –“

“Kim Minseok, if you’re about to offer me money right now, you can just stop before I get mad.”

Xiumin shut his mouth and studied the flash in Jongdae’s eyes, the tilt of his eyebrows. It was an expression new to him and therefore fascinating.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say, but it’s good to know your limit,” he said.

Jongdae cringed.

“Oh shit, that made me sound like such a jerk, I’m so sorry, hyung.”

He turned his face away, pulled back his hands. Unacceptable. Xiumin sat up, purposefully staying close enough to Jongdae that their legs touched.

“If that were the type of arrangement you wanted, I wouldn’t be offended, Jongdae. I know you want to be here – to be with me. But I also know how limited your time is, and you’ve hinted that things are financially difficult for you. For my part, if I could make either of those easier for you, that would not make our relationship transactional.”

Jongdae glanced at him, then away again, his mouth tight.

“It would for me,” he said. “I don’t like it, it sounds ugly.”

“Then I’ll never offer,” Xiumin said. “Though I wish you luck trying to stop me from buying you gifts.”

“Hyung.”

Jongdae rolled his eyes, but leaned over to put his face against Xiumin’s chest and push until Xiumin lay back and hugged him.

“Tell me why it’s hard,” Xiumin said, smoothing the hair at the back of Jongdae’s neck. “And why your family is in need of good news.”

Jongdae went heavy and curled his hand over the top of Xiumin’s head, sighing.

“So the reason why I went into the army so young was because my dad got diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease during my second year of college.”

“I think I’ve heard of that,” Xiumin said.

“You can’t have heard anything good about it,” Jongdae said. “It’s one of those diseases they can only try to stave off for a while, but it’s inevitably fatal.”

Xiumin tightened his arm over Jongdae’s back.

“Appa got really weak really fast, so I went in the service so I’d make sure to be out sooner so I could spend more time with him before – well. And then he was stable for a while. Between me and my brother living at home, my mom could keep working and we could help take care of him. But then a couple of years ago, right when I was starting grad school, he started to go downhill again. My mom decided that she needed to stay home with him, but then my brother got laid off from his job.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. They moved to Muan around then. It’s not home, I grew up in Siheung.”

“The Youth Chorus patch on your bag.”

Jongdae lifted his head and smiled a little. His eyes were red.

“Yeah. I was co-lead tenor by the time I aged out, which is a much bigger deal even than it sounds.”

“I’m sure you deserved it.”

Wrinkling his nose, Jongdae laid his head back down on Xiumin’s chest.

“Anyway, Muan’s a little cheaper, and the warmer weather’s a little easier on my dad. Hyung got a pretty decent job. But Appa’s pretty much fully paralyzed now. A lot of days, he can’t even talk. Caring for him is really expensive, and I know my mom is wearing herself out. My brother too. They keep telling me to stick it out here, finish my degree. But I feel like things have just gotten progressively harder since they left. Chan and Nini have been wonderful, and I’m really lucky that I have jobs with so much flexibility, but – “

He wound his fist around one of the straps of Xiumin’s tank. Xiumin held him carefully.

“It’s just hard. I feel pretty desperate sometimes. I was supposed to get a composition certificate to go with my theory degree, but you have to have two instruments for that, and I couldn’t afford to keep the lessons up. And I mean. I’ll be certified to teach without, but I kind of needed that certificate so I wouldn’t get stuck just teaching little kids forever.”

Jongdae was silent for several long minutes.

“So yeah. Sometimes I feel pretty rushed, trying to get everything done so I can just be with you when we’re together. But it helps, Min. It makes me happy.”

The level to which Xiumin did not deserve one scrap of this was overwhelming. But he couldn’t make himself care about that. Not when there was Jongdae to hold tight. Not when he could feel glad and grateful instead.

“It makes me happy, too,” he said. “And I want you to promise to ask me, if there’s any way in which you’ll allow me to help.”

Jongdae squeezed him.

“I’m not really good at asking for help, but I promise to try.”

“Fair enough.”

Lying still with Jongdae’s weight on top of him, skating his fingers across the skin of Jongdae’s back, Xiumin realized that all of his earlier dismay had evaporated. Even thinking back on the evening couldn’t return that feeling with any immediacy. Though it did provide one potentially useful reminder.

“If you could afford the lessons again, is it too late to get your extra certificate?”

Jongdae’s head popped up, annoyance all over his face.

“Just answer the question, Jongdae.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But it’s pointless to find out, I have literally zero extra won at any given moment, and who’s going to give me a third job?”

“What if it were something with a minimal time investment, like giving a small child piano lessons?”

“I’m pretty sure one piano student wouldn’t cover two grad-level instrument classes. Why? Hyung, please don’t tell me you have some secret child stashed away somewhere.”

“I do not,” Xiumin said. “I have a colleague who was just telling me tonight that he wants a piano teacher for his daughter.”

Thinking, with his bottom lip curled up over the upper, was a good look Jongdae. Though if he thought about it, Xiumin couldn’t identify a time yet when Jongdae had looked bad.

“That could be fun. And even if it’s not enough for my certificate, it could help with my zero extra won problem.”

“Shall I pass along your number?”

“Only if you don’t mind the risk that I might start falling asleep and drooling on you mid-conversation if I take on more work.”

To be useful to Jongdae – even if only hypothetically so far – was better than pulling off any high-stakes job. He had no idea how satisfying such simple things could be. How rewarding it was to comfort a person one cared about. Even if the caring itself was somewhat frightening.

“The money thing. Who even put the idea in your head?” Xiumin asked.

“Ugh, Chanyeol,” Jongdae said, wriggling in a way that, if continued, would go far toward giving Xiumin sufficient energy to remain awake for quite a while longer. “He keeps calling himself my ‘future co-boyfriend’ and asking about ‘our beautiful sugar daddy’.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Eight miserable years.”

“Jongdae, I’ve had one conversation with the man and already I can tell that rising to his nonsense just makes him worse.”

Jongdae groaned.

“I know. I just never think of it in the moment because I’m too horrified.”

“That’s very sad.”

“I know, hyung. It’s pathetic.”

“Do you require comforting?”

Jongdae lifted his head to stare at him again.

“Do I require -? Oh. Yes, hyung. I definitely need you to make me feel better.”


	23. Jongdae

In the morning, Jongdae, finding himself awake first, took a minute to watch Minseok sleep, gorgeous even slack-faced and soft. He replayed their conversation while he waited in the kitchen for Min’s shiny, robot-looking coffee maker to do its thing. Any time he stopped to think about it, he couldn’t get over his good fortune. He had been on a few dates in the past couple of years – he and Key very briefly tried to start a thing, until Key said “Dae, I just can’t with your schedule. I never _see_ you outside of work” and they decided to stick with being friends. That had been the typical response: he had too much going on, or was too broke, or was in some other way just not _enough_.

But here was Minseok, who knew from the get-go that he was an overly busy, penniless student with a deeply unhip future ahead of him, and still just wanted him around. Who went to the kinds of exclusive restaurants a lot of people would crush heads to get into and came home to fall on Kim Jongdae like he was some sort of rescuer. Who let him complain and tease like he actually enjoyed it. Who kissed him like he never wanted to do anything else.

Who listened to Jongdae’s family woes and only offered to help.

Jongdae was more than halfway along to being totally, completely in love.

They’d left a trail of clothes from sofa to bedroom. Jongdae picked them up, laying them on the coffee table. He caught sight of the label when he picked up Min’s suit jacket. The word looked familiar. Typing in English letters was always so weird (so hard to find them on the keyboard), but the search told him what he suspected: there weren’t too many brands fancier than Balenciaga. He folded it very carefully.

He was looking at the cufflinks when Min stumbled out of the bedroom, hair going in a hundred directions, yawning.

“Coffee’s ready, Min.”

“You are a literal angel.”

He leaned his head on Jongdae’s shoulder when he sat down, mug in hand. It was really nice.

“Min,” Jongdae said, hoping that he wasn’t about to ruin their quiet moment, “are these diamonds?”

Minseok straightened and took the cufflink. He stared down at it, and Jongdae watched him wake up by sheer force of will.

“They are,” he said.

“Hyung, are you like stupidly rich?”

Minseok blinked, tilted his head to the side.

“I suppose I am,” he said.

He looked Jongdae in the eye.

“Does that bother you?”

Did feeling weird about it count as being bothered? Jongdae didn’t even know.

“I think I just need to get used to it,” he said. “I’ve never known anybody rich enough to just throw diamond cufflinks on the floor who wasn’t also a huge asshole.”

“I assure you, Jongdae, I am definitely an asshole,” Minseok said, looking all solemn, like he actually meant it.

Such a weirdo.

“Hyung. If you’re fishing for compliments right now, you know all that’s going to do is lead to more sex, and I have to be at work at ten.”

So they multitasked and did it in the shower, Jongdae fucking him up against the wall from behind, spilling all those compliments into Minseok’s ear until he spilled into Min’s ass and Min spilled all over his hand. It was great.

 

He was just about to clock out at Cuppa when the bell on the door chimed and he looked up to see Min, walking toward him in a shaft of late-afternoon sunlight. From the way his chest felt, Jongdae figured that his calculation earlier was wrong. He was a lot further along than halfway in love.

“Minseok!” Amber said, rushing around the side of the counter to hug him.

He came out of the hug looking so surprised that his mouth made a little o. Amber laughed and cuffed his arm.

“Sorry, you don’t get to be shy around me. We sang together, now we’re friends for life.”

Jongdae had to take a deep breath. He was just so _happy_.

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d drive you home.”

“The bus stop is barely thirty meters away, but I’m not going to complain about seeing you for a few more minutes before I leave.”

“That’s why I came,” Min said.

“Hey! Heads together!” Amber yelled, sounding so authoritative that they both moved without thinking.

Hazards of former military service.

“Now smile! One – two –“

She looked at her phone.

“Ugh, you’re both too good looking, it makes me barf.”

“Text me that,” Jongdae said.

“I’m gonna, I just haven’t hit send yet.”

They looked at the photo in the car (after making out a little). It was really flattering. Jongdae set it as his lock screen, and Min laughed at him.

“Please forward it to me too.”

At the apartment, he actually parked, and pulled several bags out of the back seat.

“What are these?”

“They’re for your parents.”

Jongdae stared at him, but before he could ask, they were in the door, and the Chanyeol Show started.

“Daddy!” he yelled.

Minseok narrowed his eyes.

“Ooo,” Chan said, doing that gross thing he did with his hand on his chest and moving to stand behind Jongdae.

“Co-boyfriend, I don’t think our daddy liked that. Am I in trouble?”

“You are in trouble,” Minseok growled.

Chanyeol giggled. Jongdae stomped on his foot.

“You’ve just added at least a six-month delay to joining the relationship,” Min said, stalking forward with a fierce look on his face.

Jongdae grinned.

“What?” Chan said.

“And all your kisses get transferred to Jongdae.”

He pulled Jongdae to him and kissed him within an inch of his life. There was back-bending. There was ass-groping. There was visible tongue.

Once Jongdae was able to shake his head and restart his brain activity, he looked over at Chanyeol. Who was gaping.

“Oh my god,” he croaked.

Minseok raised one eyebrow.

“Nope, that’s it, I’m defeated,” Chan said, raising one hand and walking toward his bedroom. “I know when I’m in the presence of a troll master. You win.”

He poked his head out to wink and grin before he shut the door, and Min laughed.

“Fixed that for you,” he said.

“Six months delay, huh?”

“Indeed. To six months past never.”

“I heard that!” Chan yelled from his room.

The bags were full of the kinds of pre-packaged Chuseok gifts that were stacked in every shop window: a box of red ginseng packets, a beautifully decorated pyramid of boxes of dried fruit, and a small rack holding two curvy glass bottles holding olive oil and fancy vinegar.

“Are they all right?” Min asked, sounding genuinely worried.

Jongdae thought about the little canisters of tea he had for his mom and the bottle of cologne his brother liked but couldn’t get in Muan. The smallest size available. He reminded himself that Minseok didn’t know what gifts he had gotten for his family and couldn’t possibly be trying to make him look like a jerk.

“They’re great, hyung, you really didn’t have to get anything.”

“I haven’t had any family to buy gifts for in a long time,” Minseok said, answering a question that Jongdae _did_ feel like a jerk for not asking.

“It was fun to shop for them. Though I had no idea what I was doing.”

“My mom will be thrilled.”

“I hope so,” Min said, nodding at the bags.

“Are you going to be okay? I should’ve – Min, you can come with me, if you want to. I should’ve invited you, you shouldn’t spend the holiday alone.”

Minseok hugged him.

“I’ll be fine, Dae. I’ll come next time, if you wish. But thank you.”

Jongdae tried not to cling too much – he still had to pack, and he knew Chan would stay in his room until he heard Minseok leave.

“Call me.”

“I will, hyung.”

“I’ll pick you up from the train station on Sunday night. Will you stay with me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Jongdae shook himself hard once the door closed behind Minseok. Chan emerged to entertain him while he packed and to sing Minseok’s praises to the skies.

“You deserve to be happy.”

“Thanks, Channie.”

The three of them stuffed themselves into Chan’s car first thing in the morning: Jongdae to the train station, Jongin to the bus terminal, and Chan to his parents’ house. Jongdae meant to study on the train, but he fell asleep the minute it pulled away from the station and woke up only at the last stop before Muan. The nap felt great, at least.

His brother picked him up. He had dark circles under his eyes and needed a haircut. Jongdae could’ve crumpled from guilt.

“Dae,” Jongdeok said, hugging him tight. “Man, are you a sight for sore eyes.”

Jongdae pulled out maximum whine and bullied his brother into letting him drive home. Jongdeok slept the 20 minutes to their house, so at least he felt like he was starting out being useful.

It was so good to see them, and so hard. Omma was grey-faced and way too thin, and she kept touching Jongdae like she couldn’t believe he was real. Appa had very little movement left in his face, but his eyes crinkled when Jongdae took his hand. Appa’s bed was in the living room, to make it easier to bathe him and keep him out in the middle of things. So they sat around him, Jongdae on the bed holding his hand, while they opened the gifts he had brought.

“At least I’ll smell good on all those dates I don’t go on,” Jongdeok said, grinning.

Minseok’s gifts surprised his family as much as they had him.

“But these are too much,” Omma said, running her hand over the ribbon tying the boxes of dried fruit together.

“He insisted.”

“You must be pretty serious, right?” Jongeok said. “You and this guy.”

“Yeah. We are.”

It felt good to say it out loud. He showed them the picture of him and Minseok, and Omma had a lot of flattering (true) things to say about how good-looking Min was.

“Gin,” Appa said, slurred but understandable.

They waited, and after a minute, he said, “seng.”

Jongdae was maybe a touch weepy, helping his dad suck down one of the packets of red ginseng. Appa smacked his lips afterward and made a little enthusiastic sound.

Late that night, out in the backyard while his family slept, Jongdae horrified himself by crying on the phone, telling Min about it.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You don’t have to apologize, Jongdae.”

“It’s just so much. Things are so hard for them, and I’m not here, and –“

He stopped before he set himself off again.

“It’s hard because you love them. That’s nothing to beat yourself up for.”

“I should do more, hyung.”

“You will,” Minseok said. “Like you told me. Get through school first. That’s what they want you to do.”

“And then what? You live in Seoul, and you can’t –“

“I can’t what, Jongdae?” Minseok snapped, sounding actually annoyed with him.

“I’ll tell you what I can’t do: I cannot predict the future. And I will not play along while you make yourself miserable over things it’s pointless to worry about right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just be there, Dae,” Min said, his voice gentler. “Just be with your family. And when you start to fret, call me, and I’ll remind you that you’re being stupid.”

Jongdae laughed, just so he wouldn’t cry again, his chest tight with trying to feel too many things at once, including sheer disbelief that Minseok could be so amazing.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he said.

“You need only be yourself.”

 

He did as he was told, mostly. He tried to help his mom around the house as much as she would let him, gently bathed his dad’s stiff, skinny body, talking to him quietly about school and work. Even if he could hardly move or speak, Jongdae could tell by the sharp expression in his dad’s dark eyes that he was still mostly in there, still mostly himself. He was proud of his little “ginseng” trick, and asked for it every time he could get his mouth to cooperate.

They had a nice feast for the family memorial, set up on the side of the room opposite to Appa’s bed so he could watch while the rest of the family bowed to their ancestors and prayed. Eating his mom’s cooking make Jongdae emotional all over again. He volunteered to wash all the dishes himself, just so he could get a little time alone, headphones in his ears, talking to Min until he calmed down.

It wasn’t a restful visit, given that he was determined to ease every burden he could while he was there. As much as he loved them, it always made him feel worse to visit his family. They were all working so hard.

Omma loaded him up with goodies for the trip back: rice cakes, radish pickle, and two containers of kimchi, with strict orders that one was for Minseok. She also handed over a heavy something wrapped in a nice gift cloth.

“That’s some of my homemade citron preserve,” she said. “You give that Minseok and tell him it’ll keep him from getting sick this winter.”

“Omma! Where’s mine?”

“You can share Minseok’s, if he’s generous,” she said, pursing her lips.

Moms.

They all cried all over each other when he left, and he probably would’ve cried half the way back to Seoul, if he hadn’t immediately fallen asleep again.

He did get pretty wet-eyed when he saw Minseok standing at the train station, looking beautiful and calm, holding flowers.

It’s just that he was so tired, and the trip had made him so sad. And he was so, so glad to see the man he loved.


	24. Xiumin

The offices were still open Thursday. Though they were minimally staffed, Sooyoung-ssi was there for half the day.

“How do I print a photo from my phone?” Xiumin asked.

Sooyoung-ssi gave him a pitying stare.

“Email it to me, and I’ll print it for you,” she said.

He emailed the photo from his desk and watched while Sooyoung-ssi opened the email, sat back in her chair, then grinned at him and gave two thumbs up. She took the printout away for several minutes and came back bearing it in a plain black frame.

“He’s cute,” she said, handing it over. “Boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“It’s nice to see you looking happy, Xiumin-ssi.”

Xiumin set the photo on his desk next to his monitor and spent far too much time gazing it at, really.

Time moved slowly while Jongdae was gone. With the offices closed for a long weekend and the city slowed to a crawl, he mostly stayed home – the apartment Jongdae knew, not the expansive one – ordering takeout and flipping idly among channels, waiting for the phone to ring. Putting the building's gym to use. Talking Jongdae through the massive amount of fretting he was doing.

It was frustrating. It would be so much easier if Jongdae would allow him to sweep in, pay for in-home nurses and tuition and whatever else would make things easier. Except that he knew – Jongdae had said – that it would make him happier to be trusted. He was an adult, not a broken toy for Xiumin to fix.

Still, those days apart were instructive. For one thing, Xiumin _felt_ useful, talking Jongdae off his various ledges when his sense of responsibility overwhelmed him. And although, objectively, they spoke on the phone more frequently, and their time spent physically together was hardly decreased, Xiumin was surprised by the extent to which he missed Jongdae’s physical presence, even simply knowing that they were in close proximity.

What was one supposed to do with such information: to be a wicked person, with a bloodstained soul, and know oneself to be falling in love?

Perhaps even fallen.

All day on Sunday, his skin felt overly sensitive, knowing that his Jongdae would return to him. The minutes passed by so slowly. Xiumin cleaned his apartment until it was pristine, washed all of the clothes Jongdae had left in recent weeks. Made sure the cabinets were stocked with snacks and the refrigerator with juice. On the way to the train station (far too early), he passed a florist, turned around, and bought a mixed bouquet.

The world felt more solid under his feet the moment he saw Jongdae walking toward him, arms full and dragging his suitcase. Xiumin briefly tried to fear that, to turn away from it. But it felt too good, to be solid and glad in the world, watching Jongdae approach him.

“Jongdae,” he said, taking him into his arms, breathing in everything of him – the strange scent of his parents’ shampoo, the warmth at his neck.

“Missed you, hyung.”

“I missed you.”

He supposed it was absurd, to have missed Jongdae so much over so few days, when they spoke by phone several times every day. But he did, and he didn’t regret it.

They drove quietly back to Xiumin’s apartment, Jongdae holding his hand between gear shifts and staring sleepily at him. And so strange, to have gifts from his parents. Perhaps it meant nothing to them,  but Xiumin felt small and unsure, looking at those two containers, sent especially to him by someone’s mother, for his comfort and enjoyment.

“She said to drink this so you won’t get sick during the winter and that if you felt like sharing, maybe I could have some,” Jongdae said, grinning.

“Hmm,” Xiumin said. “I suppose if you earn it.”

Jongdae flopped over, laying his head in Xiumin’s lap and smiling up at him.

“Oh, I will definitely earn it, hyung.”

He yawned spectacularly, then looked sheepish.

“But maybe not tonight?”

How good it was to put his hands on Jongdae’s face.

“You’re here,” he said. “That’s enough.”

He went to work late Monday morning, it being necessary to show with his hand, his mouth, and his cock just how much Jongdae had been missed. He hadn’t noticed how much better he slept with Jongdae next to him, until the absence had been too much to ignore. He hadn’t let himself admit previously how deeply he felt, under and along with his desire.

“Hyung,” Jongdae said, just after dawn, with Xiumin’s mouth up under his chin and his cock buried deep. “Hyung, I _missed_ you.”

“Want you with me,” Xiumin said, hearing how hoarse his own voice was, his hand busy between Jongdae’s legs, release rushing toward him. “Jongdae. Want you.”

“Yes, Min,” and he came, gasping, quieter by far than usual, his fingers dug hard into the flesh of Xiumin’s shoulders, sending Xiumin after him, shuddering, groaning low.

 

Suho, D.O., and Baekhyun were in his office when he arrived, Baekhyun standing by the window facing inward, obviously looking at the photo on Xiumin's desk, hands in his pockets, chewing on his still-bruised lip. D.O. was nursing a takeout cup of coffee, leaning over Suho's shoulder. Suho was, as ever when not speaking to someone, typing on his tablet.

Xiumin knew better than to think that – much less feel guilty about – they had been waiting long. Standard protocol for meetings involved a string of messages between lobby security and the assistants, such that it seemed that everyone arrived spontaneously at the correct location.

This tended to awe outsiders. In-house, it was simply convenient.

"Xiumin," Suho said, turning the tablet over. "Thank god the holiday's over. I thought I would murder someone out of sheer boredom."

Baekhyun tossed his head and laughed. Xiumin, still in the glow of Jongdae coming apart under and around him, didn't bother to disagree and instead sat across his office's small meeting table from Suho. Baekhyun dropped into the chair next to Suho – a change from his usual habit of sitting as close to Xiumin as possible.

D.O. frowned at Baekhyun, then took the seat next to Xiumin. The topic of discussion was of course the trouble among their street-level operations. Xiumin and Suho compared notes on what they had heard at the dinner. D.O. had an actual report drawn up (no surprise there) listing some of their smaller storefronts that had been recently plagued by break-ins.

 “I’ll go talk to them,” Xiumin said. “Let them know we’ll look for them.”

 “We can work out some protection for them,” D.O. said.

 Suho nodded.

 “It’ll stretch us pretty thin, but we should.”

 “We need to stay focused and not overextend ourselves,” Baekhyun muttered.

 Xiumin realized that he had been waiting for a comment like that.

 “We take care of our own,” D.O. said, annoyance driving his already deep voice down even further. “Otherwise, what’s the point of all this shit?”

"I'm just saying," Baekhyun said, louder and glaring at Xiumin. "Maybe we should circle our wagons and stick close to home."

Xiumin gazed back.

"That's what we just said, dumbass," D.O. drawled.

"Right," Suho said. "Sounds like you want to go on the security tour with Xiumin, then."

Xiumin groaned inwardly.

 It was fine, though. They went to the affected businesses first, in their suits, with bows and envelopes of cash, promises to send people by regularly to keep the owners and employees safe. Several times, between storefronts, Xiumin watched Baekhyun almost work up the nerve to needle him about the photo on his desk, then drop it. Once he got so far as to open his mouth.

"No," was all it took to stop that.

Tuesday they dressed down and visited the others of their business ventures near the spots that had been burglarized. They heard a lot of reports about sketchy figures loitering around and gave out as many assurances as was reasonable. Tiresome but fruitful, and Baekhyun agreed to organize the protection patrols.

That done, Xiumin looked up and realized how close they were to the tea shop. A good measure of the tension in his body immediately dissipated.

"We're done for today," he said.

“Thank god, I'm starving,” Baekhyun said.

“Enjoy.”

Xiumin tried to recall whether he was habitually this rude to Baekhyun. By his clenched jaw, Baekhyun did not exactly enjoy it. But Xiumin wouldn’t have him upsetting Jongdae. So far as he was concerned, being good to Jongdae meant protecting him from the world of crime and violence. And everyone associated with it.

It took bearing some measure of pestering, but Xiumin was finally able to goad Baekyun into going his own way. Xiumin was no idiot, however. First he wandered, then he lingered in a bookstore, for the first time in years, leaving by a different door from the one by which he had entered.

Only then did he walk – by a long and circuitous route – to Cuppa to see Jongdae.


	25. Jongdae

Nothing to ease a man back into his day-to-day schedule like having one’s boyfriend show up mid-shift, hair all fuzzy but looking delicious, just because. The first few days after a holiday were always slow, and he was still tired from his travels. The sight of Minseok striding through the door made Jongdae huff a deep breath, and he definitely smiled like an idiot.

“Hey.”

“I found myself in the neighborhood.”

Which Jongdae believed about as much as he believed that a solar eclipse was caused by a dog biting the sun, but who cared. There were no customers, and no one out on the sidewalk was looking in. He walked around the counter, grabbed Minseok by the shirt, and pulled him into the small office area in the back, kissing him hard and messy, until Minseok backed him against the wall and ground up against him.

“Where did you come from?” he asked, sucking along the bottom of Minseok’s jaw. “I can’t believe how happy I am to see you.”

“Jongdae,” Minseok said, low and hoarse, cupping Jongdae’s ass.

Unfortunately, Jongdae was pretty sure that fucking in the office was a fireable offense. Otherwise, he would’ve been down. The desk was probably the perfect height.

Even worse, at that moment the bells on the shop door rang violently. He and Minseok jumped apart, and Jongdae darted to the counter.

No one was there. Weird.

Still, it was enough to scare him out of his skin. Minseok leaned against the door frame of the office, smirking at him while he relearned how to breathe properly. It was totally unfair to be dating someone who was apparently ruffled by exactly nothing.

“One more,” Minseok said.

Jongdae wasn’t going to turn down more kissing, but he kept it quick, just to stave off a heart attack.

As good as it was to see (and get his mouth on) Minseok, it lent a strangeness to the rest of the day. Key missed his ferry from home and thus his shift, so Jongdae spent the evening alone. It continued to be mostly dead, until just after dark.

The guy who walked through the door was a little taller, with features so delicate that he looked like something out of a fairy tale, and his smile was openly flirtatious.

Three months earlier, Jongdae would’ve fallen over from excitement.

“Well, look at you,” the guy said, his voice a little nasal and his smile wide.

Even though he was really handsome, there was an edge to his wide smile that Jongdae didn’t like. He’d worked in service jobs for long enough to have a pretty good instinct for troublesome customers, and this was definitely one of them.

“What can I get you?”

The rule was: always start off acting like everything was normal. Not every customer with a creepy vibe was going to be creepy about a cup of tea.

“Depends,” the guy said, leaning on the counter and tossing his head.

“What are you offering?”

There was a time when this would’ve been a little bit of a thrill. Sorry, dude.

“Tea?” Jongdae said. “The pastries are good. I like the chocolate croissant.”

The guy stood back up. The smile dropped off his face in favor of an unfriendly, assessing look. Jongdae felt like he was being graded.

“I gotta say, you’re not what I would’ve expected from Xiumin’s little piece of ass.”

Oh great, a person with a bone to pick who was also completely wrong.

“Sorry, man, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What would you like to order?”

The guy smirked.

“You’re telling me you don’t know Xiumin. He was in here earlier.”

Jongdae shrugged.

“We’ve been open since six a.m. this morning, so it’s possible. Is that person Chinese? Did he leave something behind?”

Sometimes, it was possible to drive off a creepy person simply by being as dull as possible. Jongdae kept his facial expression pleasantly bland and stood with his hands folded on the counter, as if his only purpose in life was to wait forever for this asshole to order a damn cup of tea.

“Boring,” the guy said after glaring at him for a long minute through narrowed eyes. “I don’t believe it. You’ll be gone in a month.”

He slammed the door when he left, but it was a welcome noise, and afterward Jongdae was glad to have school work to take his mind off the weirdness of that conversation. By the time Minseok came to pick him up, he had put it out of his mind. And after Min was done with him later on, he didn’t have any mind left, anyhow, having been transformed into a post-orgasmic puddle of sappiness who literally fell asleep in the middle of a kiss.

His phone rang with a call from a blocked number the next afternoon.

“I’m told you’re willing to teach my daughter Song Misoo the piano,” a woman said when Jongdae answered. “And that you will treat her kindly and responsibly. When are you available to meet?”

“Oh!” Jongdae said, trying to buy at least two seconds to pull some thoughts together.

“This evening at seven or tomorrow at ten-thirty?”

“I – um,” while paging frantically through his planner and miraculously finding a match, “actually tonight would be just fine, if you don’t mind pushing it to seven-thirty.”

“Fine. Tell me the address so I can send a car.”

“Oh no, please don’t go to that trouble, I can – “

“Tell me the address. I’ll be sending a car.”

If her voice was anything to go by, this woman was terrifying. He told her the address.

Jongdae could hardly afford the cab he took to his apartment, but it was the only way to get there in time to gather up everything he needed and change into a clean shirt.

Chanyeol was spread across the living room when he burst in the door, and startled so hard he dropped his guitar.

“Sorry, dude,” Jongdae said, hustling past him to the little cabinet on the side wall where he kept all his important paperwork.

It was the work of a minute to pull out his transcripts. One thing down.

“Are you okay?”

“Unexpected job interview. Hey, do you have any beginner’s piano music? Something that would be okay for a little kid?”

By the time he had scrubbed down his torso and put on the shirt Minseok had sent him, Chan had a small stack of papers in his hands. Lucky: his sheet music was the one thing Chanyeol kept meticulously organized. Jongdae’s phone buzzed: a text from the driver.

“Are these okay?”

“I’m sure they’re great. Thanks, Chan! I’ll bring them back!”

The car was hard to miss, being a shiny black sedan with blacked-out windows and a man actually dressed like an actual chauffeur who opened the back door for him and bowed.

So it was kind of good that he was rushed and stressed out, because he didn’t have time to start freaking out about how fancy it was until they pulled into a driveway behind a locked gate. In the meantime, he combed his hair down with his fingers, arranged all his papers so they were easy to get to in his bag, and looked through the music Chanyeol had shoved in his hands: a couple of simplified classical pieces, a whole booklet of children’s songs, and the sheet music from the summer’s big girl-group hit, which Jongdae actually knew how to play.

An ahjumma in a grey uniform waited at the top of the steps. It may have been the back door, but it was the fanciest back door Jongdae had ever walked through, for sure. He followed the ahjumma down a hallway to an even fancier room.

“I’m Ha Bohrang,” the lady standing in front of the sofa said.

She was, without question, the scariest person Jongdae had ever seen, taller than him in her sky-high heels, intimidatingly beautiful, dressed formally even though she was at home, with very pointy fingernails, angry-looking arched eyebrows, and a crimson-lipsticked mouth that had not a single hint of a smile about it.

Jongdae bowed ninety degrees.

“I’m –“

“Kim Jongdae, yes. Please sit.”

He sat. Felt blank for a very awkward second, then jerked himself awake and pulled his transcripts out of his bag.

“These are my school records,” he said. “My undergraduate degree is in elementary education, and I’m currently toward the end of my master’s degree in music.”

Ha Bohrang-ssi looked at the papers in his hands but didn’t take them. She pursed her lips.

“That you have papers to bring is sufficient. I assume, if you studied elementary education, that you actually like children?”

“Oh! Yes, I do. Otherwise I’d have a pretty unhappy career ahead of me, you know?”

She didn’t return his smile.

He cleared his throat.

“Who was your first piano teacher?”

Here was something he could speak comfortably about, anyway.

“My grandmother,” he said. “She had a piano that she had scavenged from somewhere during the war, and she always kept it with her, no matter how often she moved. It was pretty much always out of tune, not that I knew that when I was a little kid. But she and I would sit at that piano together for hours almost every day when I was little. It wasn’t formal training at all, but that was where I learned to love music, pounding on that old piano and singing with her.”

Ha Bohrang-ssi nodded once, and her posture relaxed very slightly. So maybe he had said the right thing?

“That’s fine,” Ha Bohrang-ssi said. “Please understand: I will not have my daughter bullied in any way. She’s to learn to love to play as you did, or she will learn something else.”

“Of course,” Jongdae said. “I would never –“

Ha Bohrang-ssi held up one hand.

“I feel certain from your demeanor that you would not. You’ll do. Lessons will be twice per week, one hour each, and you’ll be paid three hundred thousand won for each.”

Jongdae shook his head and wondered whether he needed a hearing test.

“I – what? Ma’am, that’s too much.”

“Kim Jongdae. I am not only purchasing piano lessons. I am also purchasing your kindness and your discretion. The amount is set.”

On one hand, the thought that anybody would _purchase_ his kindness was kind of offensive. On the other hand, two hours of extra work per week to make enough to pay for his instrument classes and even have something left over! How could he turn that down?

“How old is your daughter?”

“She’s five.”

“If you’ll excuse me, two hours of lessons a week is a lot for that age. You’ll essentially be paying me for ninety minutes of watching her practice. That doesn’t seem fair for you.”

“You’re free to conduct you lessons however you wish. As long as Misoo learns and remains happy, I will be content.”

She handed him an envelope. Jongdae took it, hardly knowing what he was doing, still trying to process what in the world was even happening.

“Please text convenient times to the number written on the envelope. I would prefer if lessons could start within the next few days. Thank you for coming.”

So they were apparently done, and he hadn’t even met the little girl yet. Ha Bohrang-ssi gestured, and Jongdae followed the uniformed ahjumma back down the hallway and out to the car, where the driver took him home.

The envelope had two hundred thousand won in it.

“How’d it go?” Chanyeol and Jongin asked when he got home.

“I guess I’m buying dinner,” he said.

 

He texted the number that night and set up twice-weekly lessons, starting in two days, with the anonymous person on the other end.

“Your friend is really scary,” he told Minseok on the phone. “But I have to say, I’m so curious about why anybody that ferocious is so determined that I be nothing but nice to her little girl. She seems like the type who’d want me switching her daughter’s fingers for making a mistake, or something.”

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” Minseok said.

“Oh, no way. You have to love it at least a little bit, or all your technique’s worthless. I can’t even with people who treat learning music like a punishment. It just seems like a weird source, you know? And she insists on paying me in cash, I’m going to be so paranoid about getting mugged.”

The answering hum was, Jongdae thought, one of the ones that would be accompanied by a frown. What a worrywart.

“But Min, thank you. This is actually going to let me get my instrument credits. My schedule’s going to be absolute hell, but I’m really grateful.”

“I told you that I would help you in any way you allowed.”

“Yeah, you say that now, but you might feel differently when all I ever do is fall asleep on you.”

“That sounds very pleasant,” Minseok said. “I like watching you sleep. And I feel certain that when necessary, I can devise a way to keep you up.”

“I see what you did there, hyung.”

“Great minds think alike.”

Tuesday night, Minseok attempted to kill him by not letting him come for _hours_ , until Jongdae was almost literally crying with need, with a huge bite mark on his inner thigh and his balls aching. Finally, Min shoved him face down over the arm of the sofa and pounded him so hard that he lost his breath and his footing, too wrecked to even figure out how to get his arms under himself, so he just lay there with his face mashed against the leather, out of his mind with anything other than the sensation of Minseok moving inside him, the fingers holding his hips, and the long-delayed orgasm that finally screamed out of him. He thought he actually passed out for a minute, because he couldn’t remember getting from that first mindless, blissful moment of letting go to Min curled around him, stroking his back.

“Damn,” he croaked eventually.

“I was thinking about you all day,” Minseok said.

Jongdae cracked one eye open and looked up at him. He knew he was completely gone, even if he wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet.

But he kind of thought, from the way Min smiled down at him, hair mussed and face still pink from their hard work, hands gentle on his back – he thought maybe, if he did tell Min he loved him, he’d hear the same thing back.

“I’d tell you good luck,” Minseok said in the morning, dropping him off with a slow, soft kiss at campus, “but I’m certain everything will go wonderfully.”

He texted back and forth with the number he’d been given, and the same driver was waiting for him outside the building after his second class. A couple of days’ notice had given him time to get together with Chan and devise a plan for the first few lessons. He had sheet music and an idea of what he would say. It would be fine.

It would totally be fine.

The house seemed slightly more intimidating the second time, since he knew where he was going. Ha Bohrang-ssi met him in the hallway, a pair of small legs behind her own and a small fist clutched at the side of her skirt.

“This is my daughter Misoo,” Ha Bohrang-ssi said. “Misoo. Come out and meet your piano teacher, Kim Jongdae-ssi.”

She reached behind her, and a small face appeared, hair up in a large red bow, eyes wide and frightened.

Kids, he could work with. He could do this.

"Well, you're only as big as an eighth note!"

The little girl narrowed her eyes behind her mother's knees. So: not frightened after all, but wary.

"Are you making fun of me?"

Jongdae stood tall and tried to look stern.

"Of course I'm not making fun of you. What kind of teacher would I be, if I made my students feel bad?"

The girl pondered this, then took one step out from behind her mother's skirt.

"Then what's an eighth note?"

"Well," Jongdae said. "I don't know if you're old enough to read - "

"I can read!"

It was so hard not to smile at her ferocious little dignity.

"Ah, then you could understand, if you saw sheet music. Notes are like the alphabet that music uses. An eighth note is like one of the letters."

"Can I see?"

Jondgae looked around at the hallway, then shook his head, purposefully looking sad.

"No, not here. I would need a music stand. Preferably on a piano."

"But we have a piano!"

"You do?"

The girl scoffed at him.

"Of course we have a piano, Teacher. How can I have piano lessons if we didn't have a piano?"

Jongdae snuck a glance upward at Ha Bohrang-ssi, who was _almost_ smiling, which he took as a fantastic sign.

"Well that's different. I guess you'd better show me this piano, so I can make sure it'll do."

"It's a wonderful piano," the little girl said.

"Misoo," Ha Bohrang-ssi said. "Introductions first."

The little girl wrinkled her nose, then bowed so quickly that her hair bow almost detached itself.

"I'm-Song-Misoo-please-take-care-of-me," she said all in a rush.

Jongdae bowed.

"I'm Kim Jongdae, and I'm very glad to meet you. Shall we go learn together?"


	26. Xiumin

Xiumin had to remind himself not to lose patience over the ensuing weeks – that his intention had been to assist Jongdae, and he had done so, even if to his own detriment. Jongdae had not exaggerated the extent to which his schedule would become untenable with the addition of teaching piano lessons and adding back violin and voice lessons of his own at school.

His own schedule suffered as well, given that many days the best chance to get to speak to an awake Jongdae was to either drive him to work or pick him up at night. And it did in fact turn out to be the case that more often than not, Jongdae fell asleep in the car after dinner or too soon for things to heat up in bed.

He seemed happy, though, to be practicing music again. Several times, Xiumin had the pleasure of coming home to find Jongdae singing, or standing at the living room window with his violin under his chin, lost in his music.

It was so unlikely, that he should find himself caring this much for a person – well, at all, much less a person who took such delight in life. Who created music, to make the world more beautiful. Xiumin could sense a growing dissatisfaction in the background. His own life was suffering by comparison. This would be a problem in the future. He would have to address it, probably sooner than later.

He was similarly not thrilled that Jongdae was almost certainly unwittingly laundering dirty cash with his payments from Ha Bohrang, but Xiumin could hardly complain to him about it.

 

In addition to his philosophical work crisis were more practical problems.

It wasn’t often that Suho called him instead of coming to his office. His calling was never good news.

“Will you please stop by?”

That sounded even worse.

Suho’s secretary was scowling, her right arm hidden in the way that told Xiumin she had her hand on her under-desk rifle. He raised his eyebrows, and her eyes flicked to him briefly, but she shook her head. Concern, not emergency.

Suho leaned against his desk, arms crossed while he looked down at a young, quietly handsome man sitting relaxed in one of the chairs. His posture spoke of confidence and power. His clothing could only have been more casual had he been wearing pajamas.

Suho glanced up, and Xiumin could read no aggression in his face.

“Hey,” the young man said, rising to bow and shake Xiumin‘s hand. “I get the full welcoming committee.”

He grinned. It made him look approximately twelve.

“And you are?”

“I’m from Big Hit. You can call me Jin.”

He looked around him, taking in the expansiveness (and expensiveness) of their office.

“We probably could’ve sent a runner for this, but I kind of wanted to see where we’ll be some day.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Xiumin noted that Suho also shifted his stance to something more ready.

“Oh, no,” Jin said, holding his hands out. “That was absolutely not a threat. The world’s big enough for both of us, right? I just meant.”

He shrugged.

“We feel lucky that our new office has an actual window, right?”

Xiumin and Suho looked at one another and relaxed fractionally.

“We remember those days,” Suho said, even if things hadn’t ever been quite that lean.

“Right! Good,” Jin said, smiling.

“Look, I know we don’t have any kind of agreement, but your people have always been really respectful to us. I wanted to let you know: we’ve been hearing a bunch of rumors. Block B’s unhappy about how you stepped into that stuff with YG. They’re trying to get some of the smaller groups together, start some trouble.”

Disappointing, if unsurprising.

“Did they come to you?” Xiumin asked.

Jin grinned wide.

“They did. We made a lot of non-committal noise. This was yesterday.”

“Why would you do this for us?”

Suho’s question echoed Xiumin’s thoughts.

“Like I said. Your people have always been real respectful. You guys are okay in our book.”

“We won’t forget this favor,” Suho said.

“See? And that’s reason number two why I’m here.”

Jin reached out and shook their hands again.

“We’re sitting this one out, no matter what goes down. But I look forward to working together in the future.”

He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered into the hallway, still eagerly looking around and ignoring the murderous looks from Suho’s secretary.

“Aren’t they an interesting bunch,” Suho said when Jin had disappeared into the elevator.

“I’m certainly grateful that they haven’t turned their considerable talents into being a pain in our asses,” Xiumin said.

“Block B,” Suho scoffed. “They never just go away, do they?”

“Not if there’s a fight to be had.”

“Ugh.”

“I’ll put more eyes out on the streets,” Xiumin said. “If they’re planning anything large, we’ll hear it coming.”

“Oh, that,” Baekhyun shrugged when called into Suho’s office. “Yeah, they’re running themselves ragged, trying to stir up some shit. I wasn’t gonna mention it until it seemed interesting.”

“Just be vigilant,” Suho sighed.

“Man, I am. These jerks’ll never pull themselves together, they’re just yanking our chain.”

That an outfit they didn’t even do business with would send a top-ranked member to warn them suggested otherwise. Worrisome.

 

The weather turned colder over the next week: Xiumin picked Jongdae up from a late night at work and found him standing outside wearing the red jacket, breath clouding around his face. For an instant, it was like seeing him for the first time again and realizing how beautiful he was. Xiumin remembered the desire that had rushed through him that first day at the tea shop. He recognized how different it was now, its color deepened by familiarity and care.

“Hyung,” Jongdae said when he slid into the seat, in that tone that sounded as if Xiumin were the thing he most wanted to see in the world.

He reached over and curled his warm fingers over the cool skin of Xiumin’s bare wrist. It was as if a switch flipped. Xiumin felt fierce, insistent.

He drove around in circles for a little while Jongdae dozed, looking for a spot sufficiently lonely. Found one under a bridge over the river.

“Min?”

“Stay there.”

Reading the concern in Jongdae’s expression when he crossed in front of the car only increased the sensation that his skin was too tight, that his mouth felt so empty. He opened the passenger door, reached down, and shoved the seat back so quickly that Jongdae’s head rebounded against the headrest.

But his mouth was warm and eager.

And there was room in the wheel well – not comfortable room, but enough – to crouch and swallow Jongdae down. That they might get caught at any moment only added to Xumin’s urgency: he wanted to obliterate any thoughts Jongdae had about anything other than himself. He wanted to make Jongdae sob his name. He _wanted_.

It took little time to suck Jongdae to full hardness, so that he shifted in the seat, one arm braced along the window and the other against the center console. Xiumin took that hand and placed it on his own head. As he had hoped, Jongdae gripped his hair, obviously trying not to pull but failing to stop himself when Xiumin drove forward with tight lips and a fast-moving tongue.

“Hyung,” Jongdae gasped.

Xiumin slid one hand up and pressed Jongdae back against the seat, using the leverage to pull faster, suck harder, until Jongdae’s fingers were tight in his hair and he was chanting “Min, Min, Min” in a high voice.

This was what he wanted: Jongdae’s cock heavy in his mouth, Jongdae’s fingers twined in his hair, his name in Jongdae’s mouth. He wanted this. He wanted this man, in his bed. In his life.

Jongdae arched against his hand, and Xiumin hollowed out his cheeks, until he could feel the suction in his ears, and Dae wailed, spurting hot against the back of Xiumin’s mouth. Xiumin backed off with a slow, lazy-tonged stroke, then set his chin on Jongdae’s thigh and looked up.

Jongdae’s fingers went soft in his hair, combing through gently while Jongdae smiled down at him.

“Happy to see you too, hyung,” he said. “All the time.”

Xiumin tilted his head until his cheek rested on Jongdae’s leg and let his hand rub gently over Jongdae’s chest and belly. He felt as if he could stay crouched in this ridiculous wheel well forever, uncomfortable, cramped, and happy. Anywhere he could think of sounded all right, as long as he could be with Jongdae.

There was no point in trying to deny anymore what this was.


	27. Jongdae

When he had time to think about it – on the rare bus ride when he didn’t fall asleep, or during slow moments at Cuppa or Top Fashion – Jongdae felt terrible about how he was neglecting not only his boyfriend, but his roommates too. He was barely ever home, and when he was at Minseok’s place, he was barely ever awake.

Chan and Nini always seemed to be happy to see him, though, grabbing him mid-rush for hugs when he stopped by to grab textbooks or clothes. And Minseok was beyond amazing, chauffeuring him around in the mornings. He didn’t seem to mind that Jongdae used his apartment essentially as a practice room: a few times, Jongdae would turn around after finishing a song, or with his violin still tucked under his chin, to see Minseok leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, with a quiet smile on his face that made Jongdae’s throat feel tight.

But he loved really studying again – with his crusty old violin teacher who never spoke above a whisper and hardly ever moved until an instrument was in his hands, and with his bully of a voice teacher, who yelled at him for a full 35 of their first 60-minute lesson and then hugged him, telling him that she had missed him for the past year, then threatening to kill him if he ever told anyone she had said it.

And over the weeks that followed, he came to love Misoo as well. By the third lesson, she greeted him with a hug around his legs.

“Teacher! What games will we play today?”

Maybe his methods were unconventional, but instead of trying to start her out with scales or songs, they played games to help her learn the keys on the piano and their corresponding places on sheet music. He always ended a lesson by setting her on his lap and letting her rest her hands on top of his while he played, telling her how she would eventually be able to do the same.

“Today we’ll learn about time signatures,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the rhythm that you use to play a song.”

Misoo looked at him, face scrunched up, serious.

“I don’t think that sounds fun,” she said.

“No? I bet you’ll change your mind.”

“Teacher,” Misoo said, taking his hand and smiling up at him in a way he recognized from a hundred times that Chanyeol or Jongin wanted him to help out with something that would end up getting them all either filthy or in trouble.

“Yes, Eighth Note?”

“Don’t you want to see my toys instead?”

And Jongdae knew how that would go: she would have to tell him every toy’s name and when she got it, and she’d flirt him into playing with her, and the piano would go untouched.

He had really, really enjoyed his student teaching rotation.

“No, I have to stay near the piano,” he said. “But you can bring one toy to watch our lesson.”

She was only gone a couple of minutes, returning with a stuffed giraffe that was so flattened and scuffed that he knew it was a favorite.

“This is Baby,” she said.

Jongdae reached down and took one of the giraffe’s legs in his fingers, shaking it like a hand.

“Nice to meet you, Baby,” he said, then, “does Baby like music?”

“Baby’s not sure,” Misoo said. “Maybe it’s kind of boring.”

This was something he was familiar with, too, from school: Misoo using her toy to tell him her skepticism without confronting him. It was really cute.

“Why don’t you sit down here on the floor with Baby,” he said. “We’ll play a game and see what happens.”

So they sat on the floor with their legs out and sheet music on the floor between them, Baby nestled in Misoo’s lap, pounding out different time signatures with their hands until Misoo’s laughter echoed throughout the room. Another good day in a run of good days. Afterward, he coached her through the beginning of the Three Bears Song, wheedling her into practicing it several times even though she insisted that it “didn’t sound like anything.”

“That’s why you practice, Eighth Note. If you keep going, it’ll sound right eventually.”

"Baby doesn’t believe you,” she said.

“Well Baby doesn’t have any fingers, so I don’t think Baby is the expert here,” he said, receiving a scowl in return.

At the end of the lesson, Jongdae played the pop song currently on every radio station and music show.

“That’s a girl song!” Misoo shrieked, forgetting that she was annoyed with him.

So Jongdae sang it in falsetto until she laughed so hard she fell off his lap.

“Min,” Jongdae said later that night, working the side of Minseok’s neck with his mouth and his cock with one hand.

“Min, I feel like you’re magic. Somehow you’ve made everything better.”

Minseok had laughed over Jongdae’s story about Misoo until he looked half his age. Jongdae didn’t think the he was imagining Minseok’s softer expression lately. He knew he wasn’t imagining the new tenderness in Min’s kisses.

“You deserve to be happy,” Minseok said around a gasp.

“You make me happy, hyung.”

And then his mouth was busy, until Minseok filled it, groaning his name.

 

He realized one day, trying to organize his disaster of a schedule in his planner, that their hundred-day anniversary was just before Chanyeol’s birthday. Jongdae wriggled so much that the library chair creaked. He couldn’t believe it had been so long already, while at the same time feeling like it was just last week that Min had walked into Cuppa the first time. Not even randomly, as it turned out, but just to see him.

Life was so strange.

He’d have to think of something cool to do for their hundred days. In the face of everything Minseok had done for him, and everything he felt, nothing would be good enough.

He let that idea simmer in the back of his brain while he went about his crazy-full days. A couple of times, he was able to sit down and have actual, if short, conversations with Chanyeol. Once he met Jongin and Sehun for lunch near the ballet school, and they laughed away an hour over their dancer’s meal of poached chicken and vegetables. So many minutes of happiness.

The trees turned colors and the air turned dry and cool. He took to walking a lot of the route between campus and work when he could, just to enjoy it, and just to feel a little melancholy when he walked through a park without Minseok’s hand in his.

“I’d say I miss you, but you look so damn happy,” Chanyeol said one afternoon, hugging him from behind while Jongdae was trying to switch out the clothes and notebooks in his backpack.

“I really am,” he said.

“I know, Dae.”

Minseok asked to see his planner one night a couple weeks later, while Jongdae scarfed up a bowl of black bean noodles and tried to dig deep to find enough energy to stay awake for some naked action. Minseok looked so serious, and so cute, learning over the ratty notebook with his lips pursed, finger moving through the million notes Jongdae had written.

“Next Wednesday,” he said after a moment.

“Is what?”

“You have class from eight-thirty to two, and work from two-thirty to six-thirty. You have a paper due the Monday before, so it’s likely that there’s nothing major due for the next several days after that. Wednesday. That’s an evening free. You don’t even have work until eleven on Thursday.”

Jongdae grinned.

“Do your homework,” Minseok said. “Do whatever you need to, but keep that night free.”

So that was excellent. And it’s not like it took a _lot_ of energy to lie face down and get pounded straight to heaven, so he was successful there too.


	28. Xiumin

Work was becoming untenable. Washing his hands in in the restroom, he caught his own glance in the mirror and saw that he was wearing Xiumin like a mask – but wearing that identity uncomfortably. He could barely remember the ways in which he had used to relish his power and the sordid rewards that came with it.

He didn’t want to be Xiumin. He wanted to be – felt like – Minseok.

Jongdae’s Minseok.

The casualness with which his colleagues spoke of violence chafed at him. Thinking what lay behind the numbers he worked with, the drugs and human suffering, was unbearable.

It must’ve shown on his face.

“What’s bothering you?” Suho asked.

“Nothing you need worry about.”

Suho frowned at him, head cocked to one side.

“I respect your privacy,” he said. “But we’ve worked together for a long time, Xiumin. Your well-being matters to me. My ear is open.”

Minseok studied him, surprised by the comment and the seeming sincerity with which it was given. They had come up through the ranks together, an implacable team of two knocking all other contenders for control to the side.

What if Suho were, in his own way, at the same crossroads?

“I appreciate that,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll take you up on it.”

“Who else are you going to confide in, Baekhyun?” Suho said, grinning and slapping his elbow.

And that was another source of discomfort. Minseok felt Baekhyun watching him intently. Found the man in his office several times, once found the photo of himself and Jongdae face down on his desk.

He discovered how close under the surface his own capacity for violence still lay, thinking of what he would do to Baekhyun if he were to come within a kilometer of Jongdae. And he hated that thought. Hated to see that part of himself, and also hated to question its necessity.

“Trouble with your boy toy?” Baekhyun sneered once. “Because you know you’ve got a better offer here.”

“Get the fuck out of my office, Baekhyun.”

Minseok dreaded the day that situation came to a head.

He consoled himself by going back out onto the streets, talking yet again to their small-time contacts, noting the apparent success of the protection patrols Baekhyun had set up. It gave him the opportunity to meet with one of their long-term partners – a jeweler – to make a critical purchase for the upcoming hundred days’ anniversary.

He couldn’t remember ever having a calendar date so present in his mind before. Each day seemed to echo with increased meaning, as they took him to the day when he would finally confess to Jongdae. Every conversation was underpinned by a shivering tenderness: he asked Jongdae for every detail of his days, until he could picture each of them in his mind, the classroom lectures, the multiple bus rides, the charming piano lessons with Song Taejin’s daughter.

Xiumin had once wanted to own the financial underworld of East Asia. Minseok wanted to be able to tell Jongdae the minutiae of his own day, no matter how boring, over dinner at their own table, or tangled together in their own bed.

Perhaps it would outwardly seem small, but the thought of that kind of life was everything.

On the day when Jongdae had an actual evening free, the weather was bitterly cold, with heavy clouds. Minseok was combing his way through the records of Suho’s legal export front for a change of pace, when the purple phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Hyung, it’s completely dead here. Clocking out early. See you at your place later?”

It was just after four o’clock. Their dinner reservation wasn’t until seven. He became aware of the entirety of his skin, the slide of clothing against it, and tightness at the base of his throat.

“Stay there. Coming to get you,” he typed.

“I’m out for the rest of the day,” he said over his shoulder to Souyoung-ssi, pulling on his suit jacket as he went.

He had three texts attempting to tell him not to bother by the time the elevator dropped him down at the garage. He ignored them.

Jongdae stood outside the tea shop, jiggling up and down in the cold, eyebrows angled as if he were exasperated, but he smiled when Minseok pulled to the curb.

“Hyung! You didn’t have to leave work early for me, I was gonna go home and spruce up for later, you –“

“Why aren’t you wearing your coat?”

“Oh. Uh. It’s so nice, I don’t want to mess it up wearing it around all over the place. Between buses and my jobs, you’d be amazed the things I get on my clothes.”

“I will buy you a coat for every day of the week, if that’s what it takes for you to stay warm.”

Jongdae tilted his head and gazed at him.

“Hyung, are we fighting right now?”

Minseok gripped the steering wheel until it creaked. This wouldn’t do. He must regain his self-control. It wasn’t fair to –

Jongdae reached over and tugged gently at his right wrist until Minseok let go of the steering wheel, then linked their fingers together.

“Minseok. Are you okay? Did something happen?”

Minseok breathed and let the warmth of Jongdae’s hand calm him.

“I apologize,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have really been looking forward to today,” Minseok said after a moment.

It sounded ridiculous, said aloud, but Jongdae grinned.

“Oh, I get it,” he said, leaning back against the headrest and raising his eyebrows. “You’re overwhelmed by the thought of your super hot boyfriend actually being awake for the first time in a month. Makes perfect sense.”

All the frantic tension left him in one rush of affection.

“Yes.”

Jongdae snorted.

“You’re not supposed to agree with me when I sound ridiculous, hyung, you’ll give me ideas.”

Minseok kissed his hand, then let go to grasp the gear shift.

“I welcome any of your ideas,” he said, pitching his voice low and grinning at Jongdae’s quiet, dirty chuckle.

He was glad the drive was short, as it was impossible to keep one’s eyes both on the road and on one’s lover. But he could stare in the parking lot, in the elevator, in the hallway – despite Jongdae rolling his eyes and complaining that he was “being weird.”

He could spend the rest of his life letting Jongdae call him weird. There were few things he could think of that would be better.

“I can’t believe how good you look in this suit,” Jongdae murmured, kissing him hungrily once the apartment door was shut behind them.

“I can’t believe your coworkers don’t all spend every day trying to steal you away from me.”

“Impossible. I only think about you.”

“You don’t need to flatter me to get everywhere, hyung,” Jongdae laughed under his breath.

“Take this thing off me.”

Jongdae stepped back and smiled at him slowly, heat in his eyes. Led him by the hand to the bedroom, kissed him slowly, his tongue soft against Minseok’s bottom lip. He slid his hands under the lapels and up over Minseok’s shoulders, running his hands down the backs of Minseok’s arms, then catching the jacket before it hit the floor.

He kept his eyes lowered during this process, but a small smile hovered on his lovely mouth as Jongdae folded the jacket and laid it on the dresser. He turned back and unbuttoned Minseok’s vest, still slow and careful. The muscles of Minseok’s belly flexed involuntarily at the touch of Jongdae’s fingers. He was already half-hard. Even watching Jongdae’s fingers fold the vest and place it atop the jacket made him long for more.

Jongdae worked at the hollow of Minseok’s throat with his mouth while his hands undid shirt buttons. Minseok tilted his head back and closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on that warmth at his throat, Jongdae’s fingers sliding up over his collarbones and down again, now light against the bare skin of his arms.

He tugged a little on Minseok’s belt, so that Minseok had to stumble forward half a step. Once it was loose, Jongdae looped it over his hands and snapped it once, then looked him in the eye, grinning briefly.

This was a conversation they hadn’t yet had, but the mental image of some of the games they could get up to was enough to make Minseok clench his fists and make a low noise in the back of his throat. Jongdae lifted one eyebrow at him and smirked, then reached for his fly.

Such a tease, kneeling down, his face just centimeters away, hands sweeping down Minseok’s legs, then grasping to steady him as Minseok lifted each of his feet in turn. Jongdae stood again, socks in one hand, folded the trousers neatly over his arm, and turned to put them on the dresser.

Minseok trembled with the effort of not stepping forward to push his face down into the pile of clothing and fuck him right there.

Jongdae’s fingers were warm against his waist as he reached under the hem of the singlet. He bent, kissing up Minseok’s belly and chest as he lifted the shirt. Minseok felt every centimeter of his own skin, felt himself breathing high and shallow in his chest, digging his toes into the carpet as Jongdae kissed upward, his mouth so warm, leaving chill behind it.

His arms were over his head when Jongdae finally kissed his mouth. Minseok left off his passivity and grabbed his singlet, throwing it to the floor. Jongdae’s arms went around his back. Minseok pulled him even closer, tilted his head to delve deeper into Jongdae’s mouth.

“Any time you want me to do that again, let me know,” Jongdae said when Minseok pulled back.

He looked so pleased with himself. And Minseok could feel, pressed hard against his leg, that Jongdae was as physically affected by the proceedings as he was.

Emotionally, who could say? But Jongdae had taken Xiumin off of him. Now he could be Minseok.

“Have me,” he said.

Jongdae cupped his hands around Minseok’s jaw, smiling.

"Oh, if you insist, hyung,” he said, kissing Minseok gently.

Minseok pinched his side. Jongdae bit down on his lip, which was an unfair trade in Minseok’s favor.

Jongdae walked him backward until his knees hit the bed, then climbed on him when he laid back, rotating his hips over Minseok’s straining briefs. Unbuttoned his own shirt slowly. Minseok raised his hands to grip Jongdae’s waist, letting the feel of Jongdae’s skin further ground him in himself. Letting himself trace the muscles of Jongdae’s back when he leaned down to kiss.

Minseok could barely remember the exertion of will it took to _allow_ , the first time Jongdae had fucked him. Now, he would allow Jongdae anything.

When they were both bare and comfortable, Minseok found himself unable to stop touching Jongdae’s face as Jongdae opened him up. He couldn’t stop staring. Something of this must have shown, because Jongdae gazed down at him with soft eyes, smiling easily each time Minseok shifted or sighed or bit his lip.

“Hyung,” Jongdae said, his voice quiet and rough.

Minseok almost told him then.

The way Jongdae’s eyebrows drew together and he clenched his teeth as he pushed himself slowly inside made heat pool low in Minseok’s belly. He groped for the lube bottle, then took himself in hand. Jongdae looked down and grinned, leaned in for another kiss.

He moved slowly; Minseok matched his stroke to Jongdae’s rhythm, watching how Jongdae’s expression went heated, his chin dipped low and eyes intent as he stared down. Minseok lifted his legs and crossed them behind Jongdae’s back. Jongdae kneaded his thighs, speeding up.

“You’re so beautiful, hyung.”

Minseok groaned and gripped himself tighter, arching his back. His breath felt caught inside his lungs, trapped by some vast, quivering thing that threatened to tear out of him – as if he would cry, or scream, or break apart into something new.

“Jongdae,” he gasped, voice breaking.

“Min,” Jongdae said, _finally_ snapping his hips and moving so that Minseok shuddered with a flare of pleasure, “my Min.”

And yes. That’s who he was, finally. Jongdae’s Min, groaning Jongdae’s name as he came, then tensing his legs in time with Jongdae’s thrusts to help bring Jongdae over too, with a low cry.

 

They lay tangled together, kissing softly, hands roaming over one another, until the sun was low in the sky. Minseok couldn’t recall ever feeling such a sense of contentment at any previous point in his life. What did one do with this kind of peacefulness? If they could’ve stayed like that forever, spent and tangled and tender, he would’ve been perfectly happy.

For once, Jongdae was the one who urged them out of bed. He wriggled and laughed in the shower at Minseok’s insistence on washing him.

“You’re so soft today,” he said, cupping Minseok’s face in his hands and kissing him.

It was such a strange feeling. But Minseok couldn’t dislike it. There was joy in this desire to kiss Jongdae with tenderness, to hold him with gentle arms. It felt like a beginning. The little jeweler’s box in his nightstand practically called out to him, and a half-dozen times, he almost fetched it out.

“You took up all my primping time, hyung,” Jongdae said, scowling at his clothes piled on the floor. “Now I have to go out to dinner in my dumb work outfit.”

“Wear my clothes.”

Jongdae gave him a glance of pure skepticism, but in the tightest of Minseok’s jeans and a slim-cut black turtleneck sweater, he looked so delicious that Minseok briefly entertained the idea of skipping dinner altogether.

“Okay, is _this_ enough to get a ‘handsome’ out of you?” Jondgae said, grinning around the flush in his cheeks and running his hand through his hair in front of the mirror.

Which was adorable, but Minseok was happy to give him what he wanted. He put his arms around Jongdae’s waist from behind and grinned at their reflection.

“I believe the pertinent phrase is ‘super handsome,’” he said.

“Yes! Finally!”

The peacoat he pulled out was too big across Jongdae’s shoulders, but it did nothing to dimish how gorgeous he looked, and Minseok almost never wore it, because it was too warm for his comfort. How had he not thought before to put Jongdae in his clothes? The mixture of possession and familiarity was intoxicating.

The entire evening was intoxicating. They shared only one bottle of wine at dinner, and Minseok still felt drunk – or maybe that was simply how happiness felt. They hardly talked over the meal, compared to their usual wide-ranging conversations. Words seemed unnecessary, when there were warm glances to share, fingers to brush against one another, legs to press close under the tablecloth.

And when they stepped out into the cold night, before they had walked a block, it started to snow.

It was just flurries – but the first ones of the year. The first snow. Their first snow.

Minseok took Jongdae’s hand in his and lifted his face, eyes closed, relishing the tiny pricks of chill against his face.

“I love you,” he said.

Jongdae’s hand flexed. Minseok looked over to see him wide-eyed.

“I love you, Jongdae.”

The smile Jongdae gave him was so bright, so wide – the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He had to lean in, curve his palm against that smiling cheek, observers be damned.

“I love you.”

“Hyung,” Jongdae said, laying his hand atop Minseok’s.

“Oh, Min, me too. So much.”

Minseok kissed him, and it was like a first kiss all over again. It made him breathless.

“Love you, Min,” Jongdae whispered into his mouth.

And it was imperative that they find a quiet alley immediately, some place with an obscured doorway that they could lean into for some measure of privacy, to give the moment the kisses it deserved. They grinned at one another, grasped their hands tight together as Minseok steered toward a side street, slightly less well-lit, eyes roving for a deeper darkness, halfway laughing just because he couldn’t believe that he – of all people – could be allowed this much joy.

It was pure instinct that made him notice the slight oddness of the figure that approached them. It was sheer luck that one of the few lights glinted off the knife in their hand in the instant that they drew even.

Minseok turned to shield Jongdae. The knife had been aimed at his belly – probably his hepatic artery, Minseok thought as he felt it enter him and twist. That he had turned fouled that aim. The knife pulled out, followed by a hot gush of blood. But not enough to kill him in a minute. He had a little time.

He had a little time to say it again.


	29. Jongdae

Minseok stumbled when the asshole bumped into him.

“What a jerk,” Jongdae said, looking over his shoulder as the guy strode away.

Not that he minded Minseok bumping into him. Jongdae couldn’t imagine anything that could ruin the high of this moment, of how completely happy he was to know for sure that Minseok actually loved – loved! – him. It was everything.

Except that when Minseok stood up, he had such a strange look on his face.

“Hyung?”

“Jongdae.”

Minseok sagged to his knees.

“Hyung! What’s going on?”

He had one hand pressed against his side. He held it up, and it was –

How was there so much blood?

Jongdae didn’t know what he babbled, but he was able to catch Minseok around the shoulders when he tipped over, so that Min was resting against his knees. Jongdae scrabbled at his coat. Underneath, his shirt was soaked on one side.

What – had that guy?

Jongdae looked up, but the guy was long gone.

“We need help,” he said, fumbling for his phone.

Minseok laid his hand on Jongdae’s arm.

“Get my work phone,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “Breast pocket.”

Jongdae pulled it out and dropped it on Minseok’s chest, because his hands were shaking so badly.

“Help me. My right thumb.”

It took a couple of tries for Jongdae to get Minseok’s bloody thumb steady enough on the pad to unlock the phone. Min’s face was so pale, his eyes wide and dark, never leaving Jongdae’s face.

“Look in the contacts. Call Baekhyun.”

“You need an ambulance, Min.”

“No ambulance. Call Baekhyun. He’ll help.”

Jongdae punched at the phone.

“Heyyyyy, boss, finally taking me up on that offer?” a slightly nasal voice said on the line.

“Help,” Jongdae said.

“Who the fuck is this.”

“There’s so much blood,” Jongdae said. “I don’t know. I think someone stabbed him, please, you have to help us, he’s _bleeding_.”

Minseok caught the hand Jongdae had clutched to his shirt and rubbed it slowly with his thumb.

“Keep this phone on,” the voice said. “And don’t fucking move. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Put pressure on the wound.”

“What?”

“Press the fuck down on the fucking wound and don’t let him die, asshole. We’ll be right there.”

The call cut off.

“I have to. I have to put pressure on the wound,” he said.

“That’s right,” Minseok said. “Press down as hard as you can. Don’t worry about hurting me.”

Jongdae put his hand on the wettest spot. He felt it – could feel the blood actually coming out – and made a small noise in the back of his throat.

“Press down, Dae.”

He pressed, and Minseok hissed. Jongdae tried to lift his hand, but Minseok shook his head. Jongdae pressed until he no longer felt the blood moving under his hand.

“That’s it,” Minseok said.

“Your friend said he would come.”

“That’s good.”

“Min, what is this? Why did this happen?”

He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. Minseok’s face looked too pale.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Jongdae fought to catch his breath.

“Jongdae.”

He looked up, into those too-dark eyes.

“You remember what I said.”

“You can’t worry about that now, I – “

“Jongdae. Remember what I told you.”

“I remember.”

“Don’t ever forget it. I love you, Jongdae.”

And it was too unfair, this sounded like goodbye, it wasn’t right, it couldn’t be right.

“Remember.”

Lights flashed at the other end of the street, a car coming at them fast.

“You remember, Jongdae.”

“I promise, hyung.”

“Remember it,” Minseok said.

Jongdae cried out when Minseok’s head sagged to the side, eyes closed. Then headlights blinded him briefly, and the car screeched. A door was open before it had completely come to a stop.

“Xiumin!” the voice from the phone yelled.

Jongdae looked up, and it was the guy who had come into Cuppa that day a few weeks ago. It was. What?

“What the fuck, Xiumin!” the guy said, crouching down and slapping at Minseok’s face.

“How long as he been out?”

“He just. Just now, I put pressure on it. You have to help him,” Jongdae said.

The guy snarled in his face and shoved him, hard, catching Minseok as Jongdae fell back on his hands.

“You’d better fucking hope Xiumin doesn’t die, you little shit,” the guy said.

He lifted Minseok with a grunt and placed him in the back seat of the car. Minseok’s head flopped to the side, scarily loose, his face so pale.

“Come on,” another, deeper, voice said.

Jongdae looked up, and the driver of the car beckoned to him. Jongdae had an impression of a small frame with huge eyes.

“Fuck that,” the guy, this Baekhyun person, said.

“You want to just leave him here?” the driver asked, sounding horrified.

“What I want is to get Xiumin to the doc about ten minutes ago.”

He climbed in the car, which pulled away.

Leaving Jongdae behind.


	30. Jongdae

He kept thinking that he would blink, and the world would go back to normal. That he’d be walking hand in hand with Minseok, floating and happy under the flurries of snow. But the car pulled away, and Jongdae sat on the pavement in the dark alley while his wet hands and thighs grew cold and sticky. While he stared at the dark pool on the ground in front of him and his teeth chattered.

He couldn’t make his mind stick to what happened. The conversation with the pretty, nasal-voiced man – Baekhyun? – seemed unreal. The lights of the car seemed like a dream. But he could feel Minseok’s blood pulsing under his hand, still, the warmth and stickiness of it, as if it were still happening.

He felt so cold.

Jongdae wiped his hands on his jeans – Minseok’s jeans – until they stung with the friction of the fabric.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. It took several tries to unlock it, several more to open his contacts. His fingers didn’t seem to be working right. They kept shaking. Had it gotten colder? Even in Minseok’s coat, he couldn’t stop shivering.

“Hey, roomie.”

“Chan,” Jongdae said.

But he didn’t know what to say after that.

“Jongdae? What’s wrong?”

“Chan, I. I’m in the alley. Can you come get me?”

“What? What alley? Dae, are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember where the restaurant was. Can you come get me?”

“You hang on for a second. Nini’s tracking your phone on the app. You sound so strange, Dae. Are you all right? Where’s Minseok?”

Where was Minseok? He had no idea.

“I think he’s dead, Chan.”

“What?”

Jongdae felt the blood under his hand again, and something huge and terrible rose up out of him, came out of his throat in a wail.

“Oh god, Dae. Just stay where you are, okay? Jongin can see where you are. We can be there in ten minutes. We’re coming to you. Just stay there, all right? I’m giving the phone to Jongin, I have to drive. You talk to him, okay?”

Of course he would stay there. He couldn’t move, anyway. And Minseok’s blood was all over the pavement, he had to stay with it.

“Jongdae,” Jongin said on the line. “You there?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you hurt?”

‘Min’s hurt.”

“Are you okay, though?”

Why did they keep asking about him? He wasn’t important at the moment. Minseok was – there was so much blood. Where did they take him?

“Jongdae,” Jongin said, his voice deep and harsh. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“We’re coming, Dae. Just hang on, okay? Did you call an ambulance?”

“He said not to.”

“What? That’s crazy, you need to call them! Is he all right?”

It was crazy. Wasn’t it crazy? All that blood. And those people in a car. The way Baekhyun had pushed him. That was crazy, for sure.

“He’s gone.”

“What? Dae! He died?”

Did he? Was that what happened, when his eyes closed and his head flopped to the side like that? But Baekhyun had said they would take him to a doctor.

But his face had been so pale.

“I don’t know.”

“Jongdae. Put your fingers on his neck. Press down, not too hard. You can feel his pulse that way. You need to check.”

Chanyeol swore in the background.

“He’s not here.”

“What does that mean, Dae?” Jongin asked, sounding gentle.

“They took him.”

“Who, the ambulance?”

“No. He made me call someone. Some friend. They came in a car and took him.”

“What the fuck is this?” Chanyeol said.

“We’re almost there, Jongdae,” Jongin said. “Hang on. You’ll be okay. We’re so close, Dae. You can hang on, right?”

Maybe he could hang on. He felt so cold, and the light looked so weird, and if he tried, he could maybe pass out out, but then Jongin would worry even more, so probably he had to stay on the phone.

“Yeah,” he said.

It didn’t come out so great.

“Chan’s driving so fast,” Nini said. “I swear, we’re almost there. You can make it till we get there. Just a little bit longer, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jongin kept talking to him, asking questions every minute or so, so that Jongdae would have to answer. When the lights appeared at the end of the alley, Jongdae dropped his phone. It felt like it weighed a thousand kilograms. He was so tired.

Chan and Nini jumped out of the car, and with their arms around him, he didn’t even have to try to hold himself up anymore.

“Oh god, there’s so much blood here,” Chan said.

“I put pressure on the wound,” Jongdae said.

“What?”

Chan’s voice was sharp.

“That’s what they said on the phone. Put pressure on the wound. I put my hand. I could feel it. Min said to press down hard.”

Chanyeol cupped his face and turned it upward, stared at him.

“You’re in shock,” he said.

Oh, was that what it was?

“Put him in the front seat,” Jongin said.

“We’re getting you to the hospital.”

“No!”

Jongdae jerked himself back, out of the warmth of their arms.

“Dae, come on, shock is no joke. You need the hospital, this is dangerous.”

If Minseok wouldn’t go to a hospital, neither would he.

“No."

“Chan, let’s take him home first. We can talk about this later. Not out here in the cold.”

Jongin buckled him into the front seat. Jongdae tried to care that he was getting blood all over the upholstery, but the effort was exhausting. Chanyeol turned the heat on full and swore under his breath for the whole drive, while Jongin leaned in from the back seat, his hands grasped tight around Jongdae’s biceps.

“You stay awake,” he kept saying. “Just focus on my hands, okay? You’re here. We’ll get you home, Dae. You’re safe now. You feel my hands?”

Jongdae nodded, every time Nini asked.

At the apartment, Jongin put his arm around Jongdae’s waist and helped him up the stairs. Jongdae wanted to complain about it, but his knees weren't working right. They didn’t seem to want to hold any weight.

“Tea and a hot water bottle,” Jongin said over his shoulder when they got inside.

He hauled Jongdae into the bathroom and turned the shower on. He stripped down. Jongdae blinked at him – Jongin was usually so modest. He’d never actually seen Jongin naked before. Then Jongin started on his clothes.

“What?”

“Shut up, Dae. You have to get warm.”

It was okay to follow directions. He could do that. He _was_ really cold. It was easier to do what Jongin said than to think about – about.

Jongin pulled him into the shower and under the water, standing with his arms around Jongdae’s waist, as if he needed to be held up.

“You’re home,” he said. “We’ve got you. You’re safe now, okay?”

Jongdae shivered, teeth chattering, leaning against Jongin. The hot water pounded down on his back. He could see the water turn orange as the blood on his legs washed away, and he moaned.

“It’s okay,” Jongin said, rubbing his back. “It’s okay, you’re safe at home. You’re all right.”

No. He really wasn’t. He curled his hand into a fist so his skin would stop feeling the sensation of Minseok bleeding against him.

But his teeth stopped audibly chattering after a few minutes, and Jongin turned off the water. Chan was sitting on the toilet lid when Jongin drew the shower curtain, staring down at the pile of clothes on the floor.

“You dry him off,” Jongin said.

Chan nodded and grabbed a towel. He wrapped Jongdae in it, using one corner to dry his head and shoulders.

“Hold this for a second, Dae,” Chan murmured.

He could do that. He could hold a towel for a second. That was a thing he could do.

Chan put one of his oversized hoodies over Jongdae’s head, held his elbow while Jongdae stepped out of the shower, then knelt to dry his legs while Jongdae put his arms through the too-long sleeves. Chan held a pair of pajama pants, and Jongdae stepped into them, holding onto the counter so he could keep standing.

He caught sight of the clothes on the floor. There was a red smear on the tile. A small noise that he didn’t mean to make came out him.

“It’s okay, I’ll throw them out,” Chan said.

“You can’t!”

Jongdae tried to kneel down to gather them up. His roommates were both bigger than he was, and their bodies seemed to be working better. They held him up, even though he struggled.

“They’re Min’s, you can’t throw them out,” he said, clutching at Jongin’s shirt.

“Okay, we won’t,” Jongin said. “Don’t worry.”

Jongdae’s shivers started up again.

“Chan made you a cup of tea,” Jongin said softly. “Why don’t you go drink it? I’ll clean up here, and you can go lie down with him so he can keep you warm, all right?”

It was good to have something to do. Go with Chanyeol, sit on the bed with the hot water bottle in his lap, drink the tea, lie down. Those were things he could do.

Except that lying down with Chanyeol wrapped around him, his face buried in Chan’s chest, he could see the whole thing again: Minseok’s pale face. All the blood pooled on the pavement. Baekhyun’s snarl. Minseok’s eyes closing, his mouth going slack.

The sound he made made his throat hurt.

Chan’s arms tightened around him, and Jongin got in the bed too, hugging him from behind while he cried until his eyes couldn’t make any more tears.

“God, Dae,” Chan whispered.

“No, this is good,” Jongin said. “If he can feel it, the shock’s wearing off.”

Jongdae wanted to ask how Jongin knew that, but his throat was too sore and thick for talking.

 

It wasn’t like he slept. He didn’t feel any better afterward. It was more like everything blanked out for a while, and then suddenly he was alone in Chanyeol’s bed, his roommates talking in low voices just outside the doorway. For a couple of seconds, Jongdae wondered why he was there, why his body ached all over.

Then he remembered, and curled over himself, hands pulling at his own hair just to give himself something to feel that wasn’t sheer horror.

“Hey, buddy,” Chanyeol said, “hey, don’t do that. Come on, let go, Dae.”

He let go. It hadn’t helped, anyway.

“Can you come sit on the sofa with us? Can you maybe talk about it?”

Maybe he could. Maybe he could try, anyway.

Minseok’s clothes hung on the drying rack in the kitchen. Jongdae put his arms around himself at the sight of them, so he wouldn’t fly apart into a million pieces. He’d have to think of a way to thank Jongin for that. Assuming he could think at some point.

It was like there was a wall between him and the world. Something cold, that dampened sound and pressed down on him until moving exhausted him and thinking took more effort than his brain was capable of.

Between Chan and Nini’s questions, they got the story out of him in short bursts. Just the bad parts. He couldn’t say aloud what Minseok had told him. That was just for him. If he said it out loud, that would be like admitting that he would never hear it again.

“Why would that even happen?” Chan asked. “Who would just … stab Minseok? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Call him,” Jongin said. “Just in case. Maybe – maybe.”

“I’ll call the hospitals,” Chan said.

Jongdae’s phone wobbled in his hands. Jongin took it from him, dialed, set it on speaker.

“Jongdae. What a poor substitute this is for actually speaking to you,” Minseok’s voice said over the speaker.

Hyung’s weird-ass voicemail prompt. Jongdae’s breath stopped working right: he wheezed and panted, not able to get enough air. Jongin gripped his arm hard.

“Hey, Minseok,” he said, “this is Jongin. We’re really worried about you. Jongdae’s really worried. Call as soon as you can, okay? Let us know you’re all right.”

Then he wrapped Jongdae up in his arms until Jongdae remembered how to breathe.

“There’s nothing,” Chanyeol said later. “I called every hospital on this side of the river and a couple on the other side, and he’s not at any of them.”

“There was so much blood,” Jongdae said.

He rubbed at the palm of his hand to stop that sensation again, blood welling up between his fingers.

“He can’t – I can’t hope, right?”

“Dae,” Chan whispered.

Jongin held him close, arms tight.

“I think you should prepare yourself for the worst,” he said.


	31. Jongdae

Minseok never called.

Time was so weird. Jongdae experienced everything so strangely – sometimes it was like he was being crushed under a sadness that felt like it might actually kill him. Other times he didn’t feel anything at all, and he would blink his eyes to find it suddenly dark or one of his roommates gripping his arm, asking a question that that they obviously already repeated several times.

“I called your voice teacher,” Chanyeol told him at one point, when Jongdae thought maybe three or four days had gone by.

“I remember you said she’s really tough. She said she’d talk to your professors and not to worry about school.”

Jongdae tried to dredge up some worry about school and failed.

“Please eat something,” Jongin pleaded.

Just looking at food made him nauseated. A couple of times he drank some broth just so they’d leave him alone. And he knew that made him a shitty person, because Chan and Nini were being amazing. They called school and work for him. They rearranged their schedules so he was never alone. They slept together with him in Chanyeol’s bed, him squashed in the middle, which meant that even if he couldn’t sleep, he had to lie quietly in the dark. Probably that was helpful.

When it had been almost a week, they both had to be out of the house at the same time. Jongdae was quivering like a live wire, waiting for them to go away and give him some space just to scream. But Sehun knocked on the door before Chanyeol left.

“You don’t have to be here,” Jongdae said.

“Well, Jongin disagrees, so I’m here,” Sehun said. “And I don’t mind.”

He and Chanyeol had one of those whispered, serious conversations that Jongdae kept watching his roommates have these days.

Sehun stood by the door for a little bit after Chan left. Then he nodded.

“You look like hell, Dae.”

Jongdae nodded. He probably did.

Sehun sat next to him on the sofa. Not trying to pull Jongdae into his lap, like Chan did, or with arms around him, like Jongin. Just next to. That was nice.

“Minseok seemed really nice,” Sehun said after a pause. “And he was obviously crazy about you, it was cute. I’m really, really sorry he died, Jongdae.”

Jongdae broke.

Sehun sat next to him, one hand on the back of his neck, and let him cry for a long time.

Chanyeol and Jongin had been so careful not to say it. Jongdae had been so careful not to think those words next to each other, ‘he’ and ‘died.’

How could he be dead?

How could he not be.

“It really sucks,” Sehun said when Jongdae’s sobs tapered off.

All Jongdae could do was nod.

“Go wash your face with really hot water, it’ll make you feel better.”

Maybe it did actually make his sinuses throb a little less, but Jongdae wouldn’t call it ‘better.’

Sehun was in the kitchen when he came out of the bathroom.

“Water and painkiller on the counter,” he said over his shoulder.

When Jongdae put the glass down, Sehun plunked a pot of ramyeon on the counter in front of him.

“I can’t.”

“You’re gonna,” Sehun said.

He didn’t ask, or wheedle, or encourage. Sehun stood at the counter wearing his bitchiest facial expression, saying some variation on “you’re going to eat” over and over while Jongdae argued with him, until Jongdae took a bite just to shut him up.

The noodles were hard to swallow at first, but once that first bite hit his stomach, Jongdae’s body took over, and the next thing he knew, the pot was empty. Sehun grinned.

“Good job.”

Jongdae glared at him, and Sehun shrugged.

“I don’t like to eat when I’m upset. But if you go too long, you forget that what you’re feeling is hungry, and then you can get yourself in trouble. Always works best for me if I get distracted or annoyed into eating. I figured that might work for you.”

His body did feel a little less like he was going to fall over. And his exhaustion felt a little more like real sleepiness.

“I’m tired.”

“I bet you are,” Sehun said, his deep voice gentle. “Let’s watch a movie, and maybe you can take a nap.”

He woke to the sound of the door shutting, and the smell of black bean noodles, which made his stomach growl.

“Don’t whisper at me,” Sehun was saying. “Jongdae’s a grown up, you don’t have to act like he’s made out of glass. He’s just sad, for fuck’s sake.”

“Sehun,” Jongin said, then, “okay. Okay, maybe you’re right.”

Jongdae sat up and looked at them, huddled together over by the door.

“You’re not going to do anything dangerous, are you Dae?” Sehun asked.

His eyebrows were drawn in at a steep angle, and Jongin’s eyes were wide.

What counted as dangerous? Obviously just walking down a side street was freaking dangerous.

“No,” he said, when their faces started to really look freaked out.

And anyway, Jongin seemed really thrilled to see him eat some noodles.

 

They left him alone the next day. Jongdae took a few minutes to just listen to silence. Then he climbed in to the shower to cry, where he could let the hot water run down his face at the same time. That kind of made it impossible to eat afterward, but he added extra sugar to his coffee. That counted as calories, right?

He wandered the apartment, unable to settle. He hadn’t left the apartment in days, and the walls seemed too close.

He knew Chanyeol and Jongin would disapprove entirely of his idea. But they weren’t around to tell him no. Minseok’s peacoat was dry, and his other clothes were folded up carefully in Jongdae’s dresser. His fingers shook while he buttoned up the coat. Since Jongin had washed it, it smelled like their apartment, not like Minseok.

At the door to the street, Jongdae paused: outside seemed overly bright, and every sound was too loud. It occurred to him that if Minseok could be randomly stabbed to death in the middle of the street, so could he.

That let him step out the door. He wouldn’t mind that. Maybe he’d see Minseok again.

Jongdae took the bus along the familiar route. It was unfair that the neighborhood still looked quiet and welcoming. He wasn’t sure what day it was, but he figured it must’ve been a weekday, given how few people were walking around. Even though it was cold, the sun was bright. A woman walked by with a red-cheeked baby in a carrier on her chest, both of them smiling.

How was that even possible? For people to smile.

Jongdae’s knees gave out the minute the door to Minseok’s apartment shut behind him. Just to see their two pairs of slippers lined up next to each other was more than he could bear. But he didn’t want to crouch in the doorway forever. He made himself get up and stumble through to the bedroom.

Looking at the room, just as they had left it, with Minseok’s work clothes still folded on the top of the dresser, Jongdae realized that he had been holding out one small thread of hope. That a part of him had thought Minseok would be in his bed, maybe weak and pale, but alive.

Now he knew. There wasn’t any going back.

But Minseok’s pillow smelled like him, still. And that was something.

For a week, Jongdae snuck out every day to spend time at Minsoek’s apartment. He could just imagine the facial expressions Chanyeol and Jongin would make when they realized, but it made him feel better. He did the laundry in the hamper: his own work clothes and the sheets from the last time they slept together. He slept in Minseok’s bed, curled around his pillow. Showered there so he could use Minseok’s shampoo and face products.

Maybe it was weird, but it was like keeping Min with him, a little. He talked to Min, sitting in the bed, leaving long voicemail messages. Some of them were tearful and desperate – but not all. A couple of times, he was able to just talk about it: how hard it was and was going to be, how glad he was for the time they had together.

Every time he went over, he left wearing more of Minseok’s clothes. That comforted him, too. And who was going to care?

He spent a day snooping, which he never would’ve done when Min was alive. This resulted in his sitting in the center of the bed staring down at two unbelievable objects, one found in Minseok’s nightstand and the other shoved in the back of a kitchen drawer: a ring box and a large stack of hundred-thousand-won bills.

So far as he could tell through tear-filled eyes, the rings were beautiful, dark metal with a subtle wave-like pattern incised into them. He set the bigger one at the base of his right ring finger, where the smaller one would keep it on.

He called and left a message about them on Minseok’s voicemail.

He took the money, too. Minseok could help him one more time.

Out in the hallway, he almost bumped into a guy, shorter than him, in a dark jacket with a snapback pulled low over his face. His heart briefly jumped in his chest, it was so like that moment in the alley. But the guy walked past him.

That night, he called Minseok’s number, and instead of Minseok’s voice saying his name, a computer-generated voice told him that the voicemail box was full and unable to receive messages.

The next day, the code to the apartment door had changed.

 

Chanyeol found him on their sofa, turning the rings around and around his finger. Not crying, for once, just feeling numb.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

The tone he used was so gentle these days. Jongdae missed how they used to tease and roughhouse with each other. He hoped he could be that person again some day.

“I found these in Minseok’s apartment,” Jongdae said.

“You’ve been going there a lot, huh?”

Jongdae looked up at him.

“Come on, Dae. I’m not dumb. You think I’m not going to notice that you’re suddenly wearing brand-new, fancy clothes? Or that you’re carrying around that giant pillow I’ve never seen before? I was pretty worried when I first noticed, but you seem calmer this week, like it’s helping.”

“Yeah,” Jongdae said. “But somebody changed the code on the door.”

“Oh no!”

Jongdae nodded.

“It was good to hang out there,” he said. “It made things easier. Like I still had a little bit of him left with me.”

“I bet he’d be happy you grabbed some of his stuff.”

Jongdae nodded again.

“I found these in his nightstand.”

He held his hand over for Chan to see.

“They’re beautiful,” he said.

“He told me he loved me,” Jongdae said, and there were the tears again, like he might never stop crying for the rest of his life. “Just before. He said.”

“It was so obvious that he did, Dae,” Chan said.

Chanyeol was more unnerved by the giant pile of money.

“In a kitchen drawer?”

“Yeah.”

“Jongdae, did he … have something going on? Who keeps this much money in their _kitchen_?”

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to think about it. It didn’t matter. He paid back Chanyeol and Jongin for everything they had lent him, over their protests. He paid up his share of the rent and his instrument lessons for school. Went back to school, endured the sympathy of his classmates and professors until he clenched his teeth so hard they creaked. Called Minseok’s phone, until the computerized voice stopped telling him the mailbox was full and told him instead that the number was out of service.

He paid the practice room fee on campus, now that he couldn’t go to Minseok’s apartment anymore, and spent long hours alone in that cramped little room, playing until his fingers ached and singing until his throat grew rough. It helped to have school work to catch up on. It was something he could focus on, something that made time pass. He figured that maybe if time passed, eventually he’d find a way to not feel every minute like his heart could hardly beat for how broken it was.


	32. Minseok

The room in which Minseok awoke was familiar: the VIP room in the tiny private hospital that outsiders might think was a residential dwelling. His mouth tasted vile and was painfully dry. An IV stand to his left had several bags hanging from it, and he became aware of a number of tubes and needles stuck into him, the blood pressure cuff around his arm, and the sleeves circling his legs that squeezed rhythmically.

“Hello there,” a female voice said, followed by a plain, calm face entering his vision and something cold held against his mouth.

“Take this ice chip, it’ll help.”

After the third one, the nurse made a short phone call. She continued feeding him ice chips until he heard the door open. Minseok turned his head to see Suho, looking rumpled, but smiling.

“Thank you,” Suho said to the nurse, who nodded and left the room.

“Well. It’s been a while since you scared me like this, I guess you were due.”

“Jongdae,” Minseok croaked, and cleared his throat.

Suho laid one hand on Minseok’s arm and sat in the chair next to him.

“Is that the man in the picture on your desk?”

Minseok nodded.

“I’ll ask D.O.,” he said. “He helped pick you up.”

He squeezed Minseok’s arm.

“I won’t ask you how you’re feeling. You’re probably too doped up to know. But your surgery went fine, and they stuffed a bunch of blood into you. You’ll be weak as a baby for a little bit, but okay.”

Minseok nodded.

“Who?”

Suho’s face turned hard, his eyes flat.

“Block B,” he said. “They don’t exist anymore.”

Minseok blinked at him.

“I don’t usually like to go hunting with Baekhyun,” Suho said. “But in this instance, I thought it was appropriate. Not that he left me much to do.”

His face relaxed, and he shrugged.

“And anyway, seems like we were due for a show of power. We’re in deep negotiations with a number of new clients, including Big Hit.”

Minseok tried to care and failed, but he smiled at Suho anyway.

The next day brought Baekhyun, with shadows under his eyes and a tight-pressed mouth.

He fussed with Minseok’s tubes and wires, his hands surprisingly gentle on Minseok’s arm, rubbing Minseok’s feet.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said.

He looked ready to tip over sideways. Minseok couldn’t bring himself to mention Jongdae. Baekhyun carried a brittleness about him, and he lingered long past the time when Minseok could comfortably keep his eyes open. Regret for his cruelty to Baekhyun crawled through him. But he could not make himself speak of it.

D.O. came later. By that point, Minseok was no longer catheterized and had begun the endless, obnoxious walking in circles that encompassed the beginning of regaining strength and mobility. He woke from one of the never-ending naps his low hemoglobin state required to see D.O. sitting in the chair next to him, reading a thick book. He looked up at the sound of Minseok’s movement.

“Welcome back to us,” he said in his deep voice.

Minseok’s heart fell to hear it. Was this his destiny, then? To be stuck in this life, with its violence and its secrets. Never opening himself to anyone. Becoming Xiumin again.

“What do you need?” D.O. asked.

This was typical D.O., and Minseok was grateful for it. No explanations. Just doing.

“The man who was with me,” he said.

“He wasn’t hurt,” D.O. said.

Perhaps it was the painkillers he was on, or the stress and exhaustion of still healing, but Minseok leaned back hard into his pillows, blinking hard so D.O. wouldn’t see his tears.

Not that it worked, of course. D.O. gazed at him, his expression quiet.

“What can I do? Do you want me to contact him?”

Minseok felt caught, hovering between two terrible decisions.

“Maybe not yet, then,” D.O. said gently. “Anything else?”

“I have a second apartment,” Minseok said. “Sooyoung-ssi knows the address. It should be closed up.”

“On it.”

 

Minseok lay in the hospital bed, or walked the hospital halls, taking as little pain relief as he could bear so that his mind would work properly, thinking himself into circles, none of which were anything but miserable.

It had been the closest call he’d had in years. He remembered so vividly turning to shield Jongdae with his body, with no hesitation.

He would always shield Jongdae from harm. But he ran up against two things: (1) there was no way that Jongdae could be with him 24/7, and (2) what if he himself were the harm?

He remembered Jongdae’s face above him, the distress in his expression, the break in his voice. It only happened because of who Minseok was – who Xiumin was. If he had never gone to that tea shop, even now Jongdae would still be his normal self, busy, fretful, but generally happy.

Minseok did not enjoy dwelling on how Jongdae would currently be feeling. If he hadn’t assumed the worst at the beginning, surely he would’ve done so by now, nearly two weeks out with no communication.

He would be mourning. Another pain that was Minseok’s fault.

D.O. returned several days later, when Minseok had graduated to an IV-free existence, solid food, and the ability to sit up straight for short periods of time. The hospital’s physical therapist had already begun her torture of him.

“Apartment’s closed,” D.O. said. “I had what was left of your stuff moved to the other one.”

Minseok learned that sitting up _too_ straight in alarm was detrimental to his pain levels.

“What was left?”

“Your friend.”

“Jongdae,” Minseok said.

He wondered how long it would take to say that name aloud without his chest aching.

“Jongdae,” D.O. nodded. “He’s been spending time there.”

The ache in his chest increased exponentially. He could see it, the way Jongdae would miss him. Would want to be in that space they shared together.

“I watched him for a few days,” D.O. said. “I think he was just – processing, you know. He did your laundry. He took some of your clothes, and your pillow and your cologne.”

D.O. kindly looked away from Minseok’s struggle to control his face.

“He found the rings in the nightstand,” D.O. said softly.

Eventually, Minseok could inhale around the lump in his throat.

“That’s good,” he said.

“Found one of your cash stashes, too – the one in the kitchen.”

This was in a markedly more wry tone, and it was enough to make Minseok laugh once.

“That’s good too.”

“Yeah,” D.O. said. “I didn’t figure you’d be put out. He looks pretty torn up, Xiumin. But maybe a little less so than when he first started hanging around over there.”

D.O. laid the purple phone down on the table next to Minseok’s bed.

“Baek tried to throw this out. I saved it for you. It’s been ringing off the hook.”

He laid his hand briefly on Xiumin’s leg.

“You let me know if you need anything else.”

Minseok nodded.

“I will.”

He stared at the purple phone for a long time, willing it to ring, not having the faintest idea how he would respond if it did.

It took him several more days to work up the courage to touch the purple phone. During that period, it rang only twice. Minseok gripped the mattress of his bed each time, desperate to answer it but without the faintest idea what he would possibly say, were he to pick it up.

“I love you,” for a start. “I’m alive.”

But what, after that? Because Jongdae would want to know why: why Minseok had stacks of cash in his apartment. More critically, why a person might attempt to murder him in the street. And then all would become known. It would have to.

Surely the end result of that conversation would be the same as this: separation, but with bitter memories for Jongdae instead of cherished ones.

Late at night, when only the overnight nurse might possibly interrupt him, Minseok finally signed into the voicemail of the purple phone.

The first message was from Jongin, from a couple of days after, when Minseok had still been unconscious, his condition touch and go. Surely the sound of the person having a panic attack in the background was Jongdae.

Minseok had done this to him.

The following several messages he could hardly parse out amid Jongdae’s sobs. He caught the odd phrase or word – “how,” his name, “please don’t be dead.” Worst of all, “Min, how can you be dead when you just told me.”

Xiumin never cried.

Minseok did, knees up, head resting on them, with the phone held up to his ear, listening to Jongdae mourn him.

“This is so unfair,” Jongdae said in message after message.

And it was. Unfortunately, it was not an unfairness perpetrated by a random universe. It was his own fault, for allowing Jongdae to get close enough to be hurt by the way in which Minseok had conducted his life. This terrible, violent life.

It was his fault.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” Jongdae said in his ear, sounding calmer but still with a voice deepend by sadness. “I can’t even imagine how to move on. How am I supposed to give a shit about work now, about school? I don’t even know.”

One of the worst ones was one of the shortest, time stamped in the middle of the night, Jongdae’s whisper sounding terrified, “My hand can still feel your blood coming out of you.”

“Oh, love,” Minseok whispered back to the phone. “Jongdae, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s weird to be here,” Jongdae said in another message. “It looks like we just left. Like you could come back here any second and tell me I’m being dramatic. I wish you could, Min. I wish you could be here laughing at me. We were so happy. Weren’t we? I think we were really happy.”

This was like peeling his heart into pieces, but Minseok made himself keep listening. He owed Jongdae that. He deserved to suffer for this.

“I’ll love you the rest of my life,” Jongdae said in his ear, calmer again. “I think I’ll miss you that long, too. We didn’t have enough time, did we, hyung? I wish I’d told you sooner, how much I love you. I wish I’d told you more often how happy you made me. How much I just liked being with you. I hope you knew it. If there’s any of you left somewhere, I hope you know. How much, Min. How much I love you.”

Minseok cried so hard that his wound ached. But the worst one was the last one.

“I would’ve taken your ring, Min” – Jongdae’s voice rough again with tears. “I would’ve said yes. You should’ve asked me. I would’ve worn it proudly.”

He wanted – every cell in his body wanted – to call Jongdae, have that tearful, joyous reunion, and simply love him as much as he was capable of loving, for as long as possible.

But Minseok knew that this would eventually happen again. It was a reality of this criminal life. There was a pervasive risk of violence, arrest, or any number of unpleasant outcomes.

At the beginning, Minseok had told himself to let Jongdae go, to keep him safe from Xiumin’s world. He should’ve done it then.

He _had_ to do it now.

He listened, one more time, to the last two voicemail messages, and let himself weep aloud. Let himself feel how completely broken his heart was.

Then he removed the SIM card from the phone and put it in the biohazard bin in his room, where it would go into the medical incinerator.

He told himself that it was enough of a goodbye.


	33. Jongdae

Little by little, Jongdae returned to the world of the living. He told himself that it would help, to go back to some kind of routine. Maybe going through the motions would be enough to help him re-learn how to breathe. School first, which was easiest. He had to catch up on lessons and missed papers. Working hard wore him out enough that he actually slept on occasion, which didn’t make him any less sad, but it took the desperate edge off.

And once he was caught up with school work, he called his manager at Top Fashion, who said some really nice stuff and put him right back on the schedule. But he couldn’t do Cuppa. He tried to go, a couple of times, and started crying at the door, remembering the first time he saw Minseok, their first conversation, their first date. And then, like any other time he gave in to memory, remembering the feel of Minseok’s blood pulsing under his hands while Minseok’s voice weakened until it couldn’t tell him anymore that things would be okay. The way his head had flopped sideways, lifeless, before those guys had shut the car door.

Chanyeol’s birthday had come and gone, Jongdae staying home to avoid squashing everyone’s ability to have fun. On Christmas Day, he refused Jongin’s offer to spend the day off with his family and went to the shabby little temple in their neighborhood. He didn’t have any pictures of Minseok other than the one on his phone that Amber had taken.

Jongdae figured he should call Amber and Key some time. When he had the energy. When he could look at their faces and not be reminded of Cuppa, and Minseok.

It probably looked weird to the old ladies around him at the temple, that he set his phone next to the little incense pot and knelt in front of it. He didn’t really know what he thought about an afterlife. But he hoped: that maybe they’d see each other again, that maybe something of Minseok was left in the universe, watching over Jongdae, seeing how he was still loved.

Then it was the New Year, and he was twenty-seven. And after that, two months had gone by. Two months that seemed both like two hours and twenty years. The end of the semester was coming up fast. He decided he could take another step back into his life.

He texted Ha Bohrang-ssi and received a response almost immediately.

“Of course. The usual time remains convenient.”

The normality of the process did actually comfort him – when he received the text from Ha Bohrang-ssi’s driver, something in him relaxed.

“Nice to see you again, sir,” the driver said, opening the car door outside Jongdae’s apartment. “Young Miss has missed you.”

It wasn’t until they were halfway to the house that Jongdae remembered: Minseok had arranged this for him. Ha Bohrang-ssi had known Minseok.

Jongdae pressed his fist up against his mouth to keep from crying. Maybe. Maybe she would let him talk about it. Maybe she was sad too.

He had barely taken his shoes off when he heard, “teacher! teacher!” down the hallway. Ha Bohrang-ssi went so far as to let Misoo run to him and hug him around his legs.

“Teacher, I missed you!”

“I missed you too, Eighth Note,” he said, smoothing Misoo’s hair while she grinned up at him. “What is this? Did you lose a tooth?”

“Yes!” Misoo said. “And another one is loose, look!”

She wiggled a bottom front tooth so loose that Jongdae hoped it wouldn’t actually fall out during their lesson.

“Teacher, I practiced so hard while you were gone. Did you go on a trip? Why didn’t we have my lessons? I cried!”

Somehow, smiling at her display made him want to weep more than ever.

“I had some grown-up things to take care of. But I’m glad to hear that you practiced. Was it fun?”

Misoo nodded.

“I can make the Three Bears song sound like it should! It was just like you told me, that if I practiced a lot, the song would stop sounding wrong and start sounding right.”

“See? This is why I’m the teacher,” Jongdae said, laughing.

It felt so good to laugh a little bit.

Misoo took his hand and pressed the back of it against her cheek.

“Teacher,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“All right now,” Ha Bohrang-ssi said from the door to the music room.

She looked at him sharply when he bowed, and he couldn’t find the words he wanted to bring up Minseok. Maybe after the lesson he would know what to say.

Misoo’s Three Bears song did actually have a discernible melody, and it felt good to praise her. The little girl’s scales were also smoother in a way that told him that she had told the truth about practice.

“You worked so hard,” he said, and Misoo beamed.

Jongdae introduced her to a basic three-note arpeggio exercise that would get her little hands used to moving across the keyboard. Then he sat her on his lap and let her rest her hands on his while he played for her. It was nothing exciting, just the second movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8, Op. 13. He could probably play it in his sleep. It had always been one of his favorites, a little wistful and a little hopeful. Sometimes when money had been really tight, he had gone down to the big public library downtown, where nobody knew him and there were free music practice rooms in the basement. The pianos were always out of tune, but this piece still sounded good anyway, and it always made him feel better just to play it, back in those days before he met. Before he met Minseok.

“Teacher?” Misoo said.

She turned in his lap and put one hand to his face.

“Teacher, are you sad?”

All Jongdae could do was nod. His voice was nowhere to be found.

Misoo, with the generosity of six-year-olds, started to cry too. She was a lot louder about it. Jongdae was just starting to pull himself together and try to get her to stop when Ha Bohrang-ssi came in, looked at them both, and swept Misoo up into her arms.

“Did you make Teacher cry?” she asked.

“No!” Misoo wailed. “He was crying first!”

Jongdae gave a wet laugh and tried to wipe his face on his sleeve, until he caught the expression on Ha Bohrang-ssi’s face and pulled a tissue from the box on top of the piano instead. He handed one over, too.

Ha Bohrang-ssi had her daughter quieted quickly and sent her to wash her face.

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae began, then shut his mouth when her right eyebrow lifted.

“Jongdae,” she said. “I realize that my demeanor is neither welcoming nor warm, but I am not completely heartless. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

He wanted so much to tell Minseok that she had _said_ that, he would make that adorable little giggle.

Jongdae took another moment with the tissues in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess. Maybe you didn’t know him as well as I did, but I’m just. Having a really hard time with Minseok’s death.”

Ha Bohrang-ssi tilted her head.

“I’m sorry for your loss. This person was a close friend?”

Jongdae blinked.

“I. Um. Minseok? The one who put you in touch with me?”

Ha Bohrang-ssi’s beautifully arched eyebrows drew together.

“You mean Xiumin?”

Jongdae tried to process this. Where had he heard that name before?

It was.

It was that night.

That's what the men in the car had called him. Xiumin.

“Xiumin isn’t dead, Jongdae. If he were, half the city would be on fire and my family and I would be in Singapore.”

Jongdae found that even the piano bench wasn’t enough to support him, so he tried the floor. He tried it long enough for Ha Bohrang-ssi to call out into the hallway, fuss at someone (probably Misoo) and return to place her pink velvet house slippers in front of his face.

“I think you need to get up now,” she said. “We’ll have some tea and a chat. Please feel free to bring the tissues with you.”

He did, clutching the box as if it were a stuffed doll while she led him down the hallway to the intimidating sitting room where she had first interviewed him. Ha Bohrang-ssi waved him to one sofa and sat at the other. She picked three cookies off the tray on the table between them, set them on a small plate, and shoved it at him.

“Eat these. All of them. Sugar is good for shock and grief.”

He ate the cookies and drank the cup of green tea she gave him. It was an exquisite blend, perfectly brewed, and if Key ever found out about it, he’d kill Jongdae from envy.

Once she had added more cookies to his plate, Ha Bohrang-ssi sat back, tea cup balanced expertly in one curled finger.

“So,” she said. “He told you his name is Minseok?”

Jongdae took refuge in staring at the contents of his own cup and nodded.

“Interesting,” she said. “One surmises that that might actually be the name his parents gave him.”

This conversation was so strange that Jongdae just gave up and took another cookie.

“How well do you know one another?” she asked.

Unbidden, Jongdae had the mental image of Minseok arching his back, pumping himself while Jongdae moved inside him. He blushed.

“Ah, intimately,” Ha Bohrang-ssi said.

He blushed some more, and her smirk didn’t help matters.

“And you never knew what he does for a living?”

Every time she used the present tense, it made a weird, wobbly sensation in his chest.

“He said he was an actuary.”

Ha Bohrang-ssi laughed. For a long time. She even put down her teacup, bent over her knees, and covered her mouth with her hands while she chortled. Eventually she shook her head and delicately swiped under each eye.

“Oh my, that’s wonderful!” she said. “An actuary! My husband will not know what to do with himself to hear that one. That’s perfect Xiumin. Technically correct, while subjectively completely misleading.”

His confusion finally triggered some sympathy, because she smiled more gently at him.

“Jongdae. How do you think Xiumin, and my family, live like this?”

Minseok’s apartment hadn’t been all that fancy. Though it had been pretty sparse the first time Jongdae had seen it, as if it. Oh. As if it hadn’t been lived in yet. And those suits he wore, sometimes. Diamond cufflinks. Never once looking at the check at a restaurant or a clothing shop. A stack of money in a kitchen drawer.

“Family money?” he ventured, knowing it was wrong but hoping for the best.

Ha Bohrang-ssi shook her head.

“If you’re this naïve, Xiumin saw a benefit in keeping you so. I do not. My dear. We are all gangsters.”

Jongdae shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard correctly?”

“You did,” she said sharply. “You just didn’t want to. We’re crooks. Very smart, very sophisticated crooks, but crooks nonetheless. And your Xiumin – your Minseok – is close to the top of the crook food chain.”

“But how?”

She laughed again, shorter and less charmingly.

“It’s remarkably easy, if you find the right entry point. Hard work, and not anything I want my daughter to ever do, but, as you see, lucrative. We’re terribly organized about it, here. One group handles illegal arms, one group trafficking, several others drugs. My family and I specialize in the types of foreign goods that are otherwise difficult to obtain.”

Jongdae caught himself before he could ask.

“Xiumin is on the money side. He and his colleagues take what we receive under tables and in back alleys and turn it into respectable funds, so we can all buy the beautiful houses and high-quality piano lessons that we desire.”

But this was crazy. Minseok wasn’t.

Did he even know that?

“Can you tell me why you think he’s dead?” Ha Bohrang-ssi asked.

It took a while for the words to all come out – the evening, the walk, the man, the knife. The phone call. The blood. The car. And the blood.

When he was done, Ha Bohrang-ssi’s lips were pressed tight together.

“And no one has called you?”

Jongdae shook his head.

“Then I’ll tell you this, Jongdae, because my daughter loves you. Xiumin wasn’t seen for six weeks. But my husband met him at a dinner three nights ago. He shook Xiumin’s hand. He said that although Xiumin didn’t drink, he seemed otherwise normal.”

It was too many emotions all at one time: relief, disbelief, even fury. How could he not have called?

The too-muchness spilled over into another brief bout of tears. Jongdae was so tired of crying. His face hurt all the time.

Ha Bohrang-ssi nodded to herself, then rose and went to a desk on the other side of the room.

“This is his business card,” she said.

Jongdae took it.

Kim Xiumin, Chief Financial Officer of Exportationes Orientales, “European imports, negotiation, conflict resolution.”

“That combination doesn’t even make any sense,” he murmured.

“That’s the spirit,” Ha Bohrang-ssi said. “I wouldn’t try the phone number, if I were you – it’s not a direct line. But the address on the back is real enough.”

He turned the card over. White text on a black background gave a phone number, a vague email, and an address in the Central District. He looked up at her.

“My daughter does sincerely love you,” she said, “and for that kindness I consider you one of our own. My husband returns from his business trip in ten days, and I’ll tell him about this. I think he’ll feel, as I do, that you deserve better treatment than this.”

She leaned over and tapped Jongdae on the top of his head, and he jumped.

“Unless I hear from you before that. Xiumin may have given you no choice in this situation, but I will. If you decide to let all this lie, I’ll respect that. But,”

she said, and Jongdae lifted his eyes to see her staring down at him with a particularly fierce expression.

“But. If I were you, I’d go to that office building in person and refuse to leave until I saw him.”

He looked down at the card again.

To see Minseok again. To see him alive!

And then find out what the fuck he was thinking.

“There you go,” Ha Bohrang-ssi said.

Jongdae thanked her, and bowed so low that she snorted at him. He walked toward the door in a haze, but she called out.

“Get a haircut before you go,” she said. “And wear your most flattering clothes. Preferably something he bought for you.”

When she smiled, it looked remarkably like a shark. But it was probably good advice.


	34. Minseok

Perhaps it was part of the tedium of recovery, but Minseok grated against the narrowness of his life as Xiumin. For one thing, it was lonely: some days at the office, he had almost no conversation with others, and outside the office, he spoke to no one save the security guard in his building’s lobby, his driver, or staff at a shop. For another, it was boring. Before Jongdae, he had spent so many nights drunk simply to not mind the hours between work and sleep.

Xiumin’s world was so small: shuttled from home to work and back again in a quiet car. Lunch brought in. Being driven to physical therapy, then back to the office. Being driven from the office to an upscale restaurant, then home. Never any wandering through a neighborhood, stopping for ice cream, taking a detour through a park. Never saving up the interesting parts of one’s day - a funny comment, a woman in a pretty hat, a friendly cat – to recount to a beloved face over dinner.

Minseok put Xiumin back on like a costume that was as heavy as thunderclouds. Each morning, he put on his suit like armor, including arming himself with several weapons about his person. He felt his face like a mask, as he sat next to Suho in conference rooms and upper-floor offices, making himself the rock against which negotiations broke, setting ExO up to launder more cash for greater profits than ever.

And at night, in the penthouse apartment he had come to hate, he took all that off and became again Minseok. It was a relief, each day, even given how unhappy he was.

He spent many evenings wandering in circles, or sitting in front of the beautiful view, a tumbler of soda water in his hand, thinking. Trying to determine what he should do. What he could do.

Who he was.

Jongdae was ever present in his thoughts. A thousand times, Minseok was tempted to call him, to go to the tea shop or even Jongdae’s apartment. He knew he would never allow himself to actually do so: he was determined to leave Jongdae be, to get over him and live a better, kinder life.

But he found the memory of Jongdae to be a guide in his thoughts about identity. It had pulled the world out from under him to become Jongdae’s Minseok. He wouldn’t go back: in the evenings, at least, he would continue to explore who this new person was that he was becoming.

Perhaps the compartmentalizing would become unworkable. In the meantime, taking Jongdae’s enthusiasm as his model, he tried things.

Listening to classical music was impossible. It made him long too deeply to talk to Jongdae, to the point that once he went so far as to dial the number, thumb hovering over the call button.

He remembered the pleasure of the few times he had cooked for Jongdae and taught himself how to make several more dishes. He ate Jongdae’s mother’s kimchi and drank her citron tea, though doing so was a reminder that he deserved neither them nor Jongdae.

The memory of Jongdae asking, “crossword puzzles? jigsaw puzzles?” resulted in the delivery of several rattling boxes. That of D.O. in the hospital chair with his large book inspired a late evening of browsing online descriptions and the purchase of a number of mystery novels. For the time being, Kim Minseok was a person who spent long evenings on the sofa reading over a home-cooked meal, whose dining table was unusable, being covered in small cardboard pieces that would fit together to make the picture of a cat in a bookstore window.

It was a strange dual existence.

The fallout of Baekhyun and Suho eliminating Block B had no downside for ExO that they could see. Their profits were robust, and players who had previously pushed back at them or tried to carve out their own space in money laundering retreated or actively courted them. The small businesses that had suffered during those months of Block B’s predation were more loyal than ever in their relief.

“You’ve got a reputation for immortality, now,” Chaeyoung told him over tea (emphatically _not_ at Cuppa) when Minseok checked in with YG.

“How tiresome that would be, to live forever,” he said.

Chaeyoung laughed.

“You’re the weirdest gangster imaginable,” she said.

It was intolerable to be laughed at, called “weird,” by anyone other than Jongdae. He frowned.

“Lighten up, Oppa,” Chaeyoung said. “I don’t think you’ve had any fun since your injury.”

She slid him the card to a YG-owned club, with the promise of whatever diversion he could wish. He put it in his pocket, with zero intention of ever using it.

“We should go there, boss,” Baekhyun said in the car back to the office, laying his slender fingers lightly against the cuff of Minseok’s shirt.

Baekhyun was a constant presence, Minseok’s pervasive shadow, aside from inside his own apartment, physical therapy, or the daily commute. No matter how trusted the colleague was with whom Minseok might meet, Baekhyun insisted on accompanying him.

“You’ve eliminated the threat,” Minseok said to him once.

“Nobody else will get a fucking chance,” Baekhyun hissed.

He had taken to standing too close any time they were alone, which was more frequently than ever, given the amount of time that he spent in Minseok’s office. Minseok caught him once smirking at the space on his desk where the photo of himself and Jongdae had been. It now lay in a drawer, where Minseok tried to resist staring at it: which he regularly failed.

Baekhyun’s dance around him, hovering, light touches against his arm or shoulder, made Minseok weary. It was all representative of his own mistakes. _Now_ , when it was too late, Minseok could see the pleading expression in Baekhyun’s eyes that he was relatively sure indicated a depth of emotion too strong for comfort.

If he had recognized it before, what would he have chosen?

Would he have left Jongdae to a safer, happier life?

And perhaps this would be his future. Minseok knew that even his own self-discipline had limits. Someday, he would be drunk, or lonely, or crawling with frustration, and he would not tell Baekhyun no. Recognizing now that it was neither idle nor meaningless for Baekhyun would make the aftermath different.

At least they knew all of one another’s sins. There was no reason to hide anything from Baek.

But at the moment, the mental image of Baekhyun, grinning and bloody, sending all the members of Block B into the afterlife, turned his stomach.

He hated it the way Jongdae would hate it.

“Boss?”

Minseok shook his thoughts out of his head.

“No clubs,” he said. “Not for the foreseeable future.”

Baekhyun didn’t even try to smile and wheedle his way into a different decision. He frowned, staring down at approximately Minseok’s shoulder, his fingers still hovering toward Minseok’s arm.

“Are you okay?”

Baekhyun’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Minseok chose not to dignify that question with an answer. He scowled. But he would respect Baekhyun enough to allow the man to say his piece.

“I would do anything for you. Xiumin.”

That he used the name was enough to startle Minseok into looking up at his face, which was wide-eyed and unhappy.

Minseok thought he understood, now, just how much that ‘anything’ encompassed.

“You have proved that to me,” he said, trying – almost succeeding at – a sympathetic tone.

Baekhyun blinked rapidly. A smile flashed briefly across his face. When he met Minseok’s eyes, Minseok could see questions there, and hope, and Minseok hated himself more than ever.

“I wish you’d let me – “

Baekyun broke off and chewed his bottom lip.

Minseok let himself bend, just the smallest bit, and laid his hand on Baekhyun’s forearm.

“I know,” he said.

He left before either of them did something unwise.


	35. Jongdae

Jongin was home when Jongdae returned from Ha Bohrang-ssi’s house. The whole car ride, Jongdae had had so many conficting feelings whipping around inside his head that he didn’t even know what think. Taking one look at Jongin – kind, warm-hearted, gentle Jongin – and anger tipped to the forefront.

“What happened?” Jongin asked.

“He’s fucking alive.”

It came out as a snarl, and Jongin’s mouth hung open for a minute.

“What? Who?”

Jongin stood up.

“You mean? What? Jongdae. Isn’t that a good thing? Why are you so mad right now?”

Jongdae’s hands hurt from how tightly he clenched his fists.

“Two months,” he said. “Two god damn months, and he hasn’t called me once, Jongin. He locked me out of his apartment. _He turned off his phone_. He just let me fucking think he was fucking dead!”

Jongin stood just out of arm’s reach. Jongdae was so glad it was him. Chanyeol would be trying to hug him right now, and probably end up with a busted nose.

“Why would he do that?”

“He’s a fucking gangster!”

“Whoa, hey, what? Minseok? A what? How do you even know this? What are you talking about?”

Jongdae sat on the floor where he was standing, and everything roared out of him in a profanity-laden rant: Minseok alive, Minseok a crook, his piano student the daughter of crooks, the pile of cash, the fancy car, Minseok – who had said he _loved_ him – letting him think he was dead.

“And for what?”

“I don’t know, Jongdae. It all sounds impossible.”

It did. Especially to anybody who didn’t know Ha Bohrang. He didn’t doubt her for a second, with her “half the city would be on fire” and her “sugar is good for shock.”

Chanyeol found them sitting on the floor, and he was as upset as Jongin and a lot more outraged, which was satisfying. The three of them talked around in circles until the room had gone dark, and it never sounded any less horrible, that Minseok would leave him in this cruelest possible way.

“I can’t believe Minseok turned out to be such a – such a butt,” Jongin said eventually.

This was the strongest language Jongin had used since the day he got the text with his dance scholarship acceptance. Jongdae and Chanyeol stared at each other, then at him, and Jongdae laughed for just the second time in months. It felt so good. It felt so good to laugh with his roommates again.

He sat up on the sofa for most of the night, trying to figure out even how to feel.

Minseok was alive, but an asshole. An asshole, but alive.

Relief warred with fury over the course of the next few days. Adrenaline made him move at top speed. He wrote a brilliant final paper of the semester. He continued to chew over the unlikely, bullshit situation with Chan and Nini. He gave Misoo a couple of piano lessons, making the only quiet spots in his days.

“I’ll follow your advice,” he said.

Ha Bohrang-ssi nodded.

“Good.”

By the seventh day, anger had won. Jongdae felt like a live wire, trembling with the desire to just hit something half the time. He got a fancy haircut. He dressed in Minseok’s jeans, the blue linen shirt, and his birthday coat. Put the sapphire teardrop in his earlobe and wore the rings.

It felt like he was dressed in weaponry.

As a cab took him to the Central District, the potential flaws in his plan started to unfold in his brain: what would he do if he couldn’t even get in to see Minseok? Would he just hang out yelling the lobby all day? What if he got arrested? (Ha Bohrang would be his first phone call.)

What if Minseok just didn’t care?

Jongdae shook his head. Didn’t matter. He would go, and he would say what he wanted to say, and after everything he had been through, Minseok could damn well listen.

It took a couple of minutes to steel himself to walk through the lobby doors. Once he was through, he strode straight up to the lobby desk.

“I’m here to see – Kim Xiumin,” he said to the stern-faced security guard.

“There’s no one here by that name.”

For _months_ he had done nothing but hurt. Rage felt like a hot knife splitting his chest open. He placed his hand down on the counter, not quite in a slap, but hard enough to feel satisfying.

“That’s a lie,” he said. “I know he works here, and I’m not leaving until I see him.”

The guard shifted his stance, hands going to his belt.

“Sir, you need to leave.”

“I will _not_ leave. I’m here to see Kim Xiumin.”

“Sir, no one by that name works here. You need to leave, or I will have to make sure that you do.”

“And I’m telling you that you won’t. Get on the phone and call whoever you need, but –“

The guard’s eyes widened, and he bowed low to someone standing behind Jongdae.

Jongdae turned. The man was a little shorter than him, very pale, with dark hair waving over a model-handsome face. Wearing the same kind of suit Minseok – _Xiumin_ – had worn. Not flashy, but conveying power. He looked vaguely familiar, and Jongdae tried to place whether he had been one of the crowd that had taken Minseok away from him, but couldn’t.

“What’s this?” the man asked in a light, smooth voice.

“Sir, he – “

The man held up his hand.

“I’m speaking to this person,” the man said, still staring at Jongdae.

Jongdae set his chin.

“I’m here to see Kim Xiumin,” he said, but the inhale he took to launch into a tirade totally deflated when the man said,

“Follow me.”

Jongdae followed him to the last elevator in the banks, which required both a key card and a numeric code to open. It was so fancy and intimidating that Jongdae quailed for a minute, then clenched his fists and hung onto his anger. It was the only thing he had.

“You’re Kim Jongdae,” the man said.

Because all of Minseok’s friends knew all about him, while he knew – apparently – absolutely nothing real about Minseok. If that was even his name.

“Yes.”

“This must be confusing for you,” the man said after a minute, in a gentle voice. “But you should trust that Xiumin – “

Jongdae turned to glare at him, and the man had the decency to blush and to shut up.

“My name is Suho,” he said after a minute.

Jongdae looked away.

The elevator traveled forever. He would’ve thought that an executive elevator in a building like this would move so fast it would make one’s ears pop. Jongdae tried to decide whether he wanted it to move faster and get this over with, or break down and possibly crash, so he wouldn’t have to do this at all. Both had their merits.

“Do you like the ballet?” Suho asked out of nowhere, sounding wistful.

Looking up, Jongdae saw that he was staring off at nothing, with a worried expression.

“One of my roommates is a dancer,” he said.

Suho, for all his placid, handsome face and expensive suit, startled like a kid in a haunted house and stared at Jongdae as if he were on fire.

“What’s his name?”

“Um. Jongin?”

Suho collapsed into his own clothing, bent over until he almost looked like an old man.

“Oh,” he said. “I see. That’s not. That’s good. I’ll. I’ll have to look for his name in the program next time I go.”

The elevator pinged, putting an end to whatever weirdness that was. So far, he was three for three for weirdos coming out of this building.

“Follow me,” Suho said. “Don’t worry.”

A man approximately the size of a bear approached them before they had gotten ten steps out of the elevator.

“It’s all right,” Suho said, voice back to that smooth, detached tone. “He’s fine.”

Suho’s badge took them through one set of glass doors and past a beautiful woman at a reception desk and a bunch of chairs that looked like seats from a sports car. He had to use his actual palm print to get through the second set of glass doors. Everything was either black, steel, or glass, all of it very shiny.

A small man with huge eyes emerged from one office. For one dizzy instant, Jongdae thought he looked familiar.

“All right, Suho?”

“Yes. This is Xiumin’s Jongdae.”

Jongdae forced himself not to scoff, but he thought this man’s expression held sympathy.

“Of course he is,” the man said. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“What?”

The man grinned.

“Don’t tease him, D.O.,” Suho said. “Come on.”

Three doors later, Suho stopped and knocked twice, then opened the knob.

“I’ll leave you here,” he said. “The receptionist will see you out when you’re done. Good luck.”

Jongdae took a minute to steel himself. His heart pounded so hard he could feel it in his eardrums. He wished, for one frantic second, that he could just turn and run away, leave all the loose ends unbound, move on.

And then he remembered Minseok smiling at him, hair mussed, with sleepy eyes, and how happy he had been. It made him furious all over again. He went in.

Minseok was standing in front of a huge black desk, hair styled up off his forehead, in a silver-grey three-piece suit that made his shoulders look even broader. Standing straight, maybe a little pale, but obviously healthy enough to have made one _fucking_ phone call. Jongdae was just watching Minseok’s eyes widen, when he heard,

“Well. Look who it is. Isn’t that cute.”

Because of course he would be here. What was his name, Baekhyun? Xiumin’s friend, who hated him. Great.

Minseok’s head whipped to the side, and he glared at Baekhyun. Jongdae didn’t even bother looking over at the response. No matter how angry he was – and he was shaking – if this was the last time he’d ever see Minseok, he was going to look at him. Memorize him. One last time.

Minseok – or maybe he was Xiumin, here, in this office tower, in that suit – sighed heavily, and held out one hand.

“Jongdae,” he said.

And no. It was too much. He didn’t get to almost die – he didn’t get to have left Jongdae in the street with blood all over his hands – and then be fine, and still say Jongdae’s name like that.

Like he was sorry.

“No,” Jongdae snarled.

He closed the distance between them at not quite a dead run and slapped Minseok full force across the face.

It was pretty confusing after that, because his arm got wrenched behind his back and up in a way that was really damn painful, and Baekhyun was cursing in his ear, kicking behind his knees to force him down, but Jongdae could only focus on Minseok’s face: the red of his cheek and the angry welt the rings had left, how hard he clenched his teeth together, his closed eyes. That when he turned to look at Jongdae, the cheek he’d slapped was wet.

“Shit,” Baekyun said, and pulled harder on Jongdae’s arm.

“Let him go,” Minseok said, sounding tired.

“He fucking hit you, boss. I’ll let him go off the roof.”

Jongdae watched him put Xiumin on like a skin. He wiped his cheek, straightened his jacket, stood up taller. The expression on his face was one Jongdae had never seen before – cold, furious. Scary.

“Let him go,” Xiumin said, softly but in a tone that made Jongdae’s skin crawl, even as his arm fell to his side and he stood back up.

“Boss.”

At the hurt in his voice, Jongdae looked at Baekhyun. He stared at Xiumin with wide eyes and an open mouth, one hand outstretched.

“Get out, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun blinked rapidly and started to shake his head.

 _Oh,_ Jongdae thought. _Oh, that’s why he hates me._

“I said. Get. Out,” Xiumin snarled.

Jongdae didn’t miss the fury in Baekhyun’s glance toward him, but a moment later, the door clicked behind him.

It was like watching ice melt, the way that Minseok slowly emerged from behind Xiumin.

Jongdae hated it.

“I guess you’re fine,” he said.

Minseok at least had the basic decency to blush at that, though he shook his head.

“Jongdae, I’m sorry.”

“How sorry? Not sorry enough to let me know that you weren’t dead.”

Minseok flinched.

“I thought.”

Jongdae waited. Every second made him more furious. He was so angry the room was paled out.

“I thought it would be easier this way,” Minseok said finally.

“You thought _what_ would be easier?” Jongdae spat. “What exactly would be made easier for me if you were dead?”

Minseok’s eyes were wide, shiny with unshed tears, and as angry as he was, Jongdae still had to steel himself not to give in, open his arms, and let it all become okay.

“You saw,” Minseok said, voice hoarse. “You saw how dangerous my life is. I never wanted you to know about that.”

“So you figured you’d just run away.”

“No, that’s not!”

“You told me you loved me, Minseok.”

“I do.”

Jongdae stared at him.

“I do.”

Minseok gestured roughly, and Jongdae felt a mean little spark of satisfaction at the evident frustration.

“That’s why. Jongdae. I couldn’t bear it if anything were ever to happen to you.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Jondgae said. “Like mourning for you? Like going to a random temple with the lockscreen photo on my phone to light incense for my dead boyfriend because there wasn’t any funeral that I was invited to? And then not even knowing what name to call you by? Or putting my dying boyfriend into the hands of a couple of strangers? How about being left alone on the street in the middle of the night covered in your blood? Or maybe finding out that you were not only alive but some kind of – gangster – from my piano student’s mother? You mean stuff happening to me like that?”

“I’m so sorry,” Minseok said.

“Not good enough.”

Minseok pushed his hand through his hair. Jongdae’s hand itched with the urge to do the same. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave. He had to cut it free here. Be done. Grieve for real this time, and find a way to get over it.

“The first day we went out, you said you were a man of your word,” Jongdae said, and clenched his fists so hard that his nails cut into his palms when Minseok’s face shattered at it, tears running freely down his face.

“I’m going to keep believing that,” Jongdae said. “That you meant it when you said you loved me. And that you mean it that you think you were somehow protecting me. But I can’t do this. Xiumin.”

The way Minseok reeled, it was as if Jongdae had slapped him again.

“I can’t do it this way. Not if you’re always going to keep me shoved to the side. Not if you live in some kind of danger that I’m not even allowed to be worried about. It’s too much. I hope –“

His voice broke, and he took a minute to get his breath back in order.

“I hope you’ll be happy. I’m glad you’re okay. But I don’t ever want to see you again.”

He pulled the rings off his right hand and dropped them to the floor, then turned before Minseok could say something that would make him change his mind. Because almost anything would stop him, and then he’d be stuck forever, in some kind of half-life of not ever knowing which parts were real and how much he didn’t know.

Jongdae made it out of the office before his throat became so tight that he had to pant to get enough air. Thanks to all the glass, he found the receptionist, who stared at him sharply and made him practically jog to the elevator. When it opened, she shoved him in, and it wasn’t until the doors closed that he realized that she had pressed a stack of tissues into his chest with her shove. Pressing them hard enough against his eyes to hurt the whole way down got him enough calm to actually leave the building. If the taxi driver was offended by his sobbing the whole ride, there was nothing he could do about it.


	36. Minseok

Minseok watched him leave, that beautiful head so upright and strong. Wearing the things Minseok had bought him, looking so gorgeous that Minseok hurt to see it. He could see Jongdae shaking. He could see the effort it cost.

He knew he deserved every word. He wanted – more than anything, he _wanted_ – to call out, to reach out, to chase Jongdae, grab him, and not ever let go.

But Jongdae had made himself clear. It was over.

Minseok had been telling himself since he woke up from surgery that it was over, that it was the best for both of them that it should be so. That this was the right thing.

Why, then, did it all feel so much worse now?

He couldn’t even care that one of his colleagues might come in any minute to see these tears. Jondgae had shone a light on him, and it had illuminated how hollow and barren his life was. And now that light had gone out.

When his legs wouldn’t hold him, Minseok staggered backward until he could lean against his desk, could grasp the edge to keep his hands from shaking.

After some long, aching time Minseok heard the door open.

“Hey boss, are you?”

He looked up, and Baekhyun’s eyes went wide.

“Oh. Uh. You’re not. Do you need anything?”

Something Jongdae had said replayed itself in his mind.

“Did you actually leave him?”

“What?”

“The night I was stabbed. Did you actually leave Jongdae alone on the sidewalk?”

Baekhyun shrugged.

“Well, yeah. I mean, we had more important things to worry about, right?”

Here was something to grab onto other than despair: something cold and unyielding, but familiar.

“You left him alone. In the street.”

Baekhyun straightened, tilted his head to the side.

“Did you know the whereabouts of my assailant at that moment?”

Minseok could hear the chill in his own voice. Baekhyun frowned.

Minseok waited.

“Well, no, but boss –“

“So to your knowledge, the man could still have been nearby? And you left?”

It wasn’t often that Baekhyun showed anger in front of him. To do so at this moment was an unfortunate choice.

“I don’t give a shit about Jongdae,” he said.

Minseok moved before he could think about it, across the room in five strides, with enough momentum behind his fist that it knocked Baekhyun clear off his feet.

“You keep his name out of your mouth,” Minseok said.

Baekhyun lay on the floor, breathing hard. When he looked up, there was blood at the side of his mouth and shocked hurt in his expression.

Minseok stood over him, cherishing his flare of anger, petty and toothless as it was. Punishing felt good, and how appropriate that in the long run it would end up punishing himself. He waited, and made Baekhyun stand up under his own power, where he stood with his head down.

“Get out,” Minseok said.

Baekhyun nodded.

“Yeah, boss. I’ll – I’ll come back later.”

Rage rose up like a wave, and Minseok made no effort to check it. He lunged, and when he grabbed Baekhyun’s collar, Baekhyun went limp as a cat, let himself sag back to his knees while Minseok bent over him and not meeting Minseok’s eyes.

“No,” Minseok said. “You won’t come back later. You won’t come to this building at all. You’ll fuck off to I care not where until I decide to _call for you._ ”

Baekhyun looked up at him, mouth and eyes wide.

“Boss,” he whispered.

Instead of punching again, Minseok reached back, slowly, to the little knife tucked horizontally into his belt. Drew it slowly enough that Baekhyun would see and, when he was sure the man was watching, turned the blade out with his thumb. Baekhyun swallowed.

“You left him bloody and alone in the street. I know you’re not stupid, Baekhyun. So I think you know damn well what he means to me. Do you know what I said to him that night?”

Baekhyun, eyes on the knife, shook his head.

“I told him I love him.”

Baekhyun looked up, eyes wild and obviously frightened, and the worst part of Minseok triumphed to see it.

“So I think you knew exactly what you were doing when you left him. That person I love. When you left him with my blood all over him. Alone. Thinking the worst.”

Minseok leaned down.

“Maybe you wished my attacker was still there, waiting for you to leave.”

Baekhyun shook his head.

“No. Boss, no! I –“

Minseok shook him until he shut up. It didn’t take much.

“So I want you to leave, Baekhyun. I want you to get the hell away from me, and I’ll see whether I can ever stand to look at you again.”

He dropped Baekhyun to the floor and walked to his desk, where he stared out the window and tapped the knife blade on his thigh for the extensive period of time it took for Baekhyun to pull himself together, almost speak twice, and finally leave.

When he was alone again, Minseok picked the rings up off the floor. It took him three tries to place them on his hands: his own on the left, Jongdae’s on the right. He found that none of this had made him feel any better. It occurred to him that he might not actually ever feel better again.


	37. Jongdae

In some ways, things were easier. Jongdae could get through his days. He was able to call Amber and Key to go out for beers and pork belly and catch up on all their news.

“What happened, Dae? It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth. Are you okay?”

He even had a decent-sounding excuse, now.

“Really bad breakup.”

Both of them groaned.

“Aw, no! That nice Minseok turned out to be a jackass? That sucks!” Amber said.

And he could agree without hesitating: it sucked.

He mostly kept things to ‘bad breakup,’ even with his mom. Chanyeol had been running interference there during the first little bit, and he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t told Jongdae’s mom that Minseok had died, but he hadn’t, just been cagey. By the time Jongdae talked to her, he could use his breakup line, and she fussed at him for not confiding in her, and then fussed at him some more that he hadn’t taken back the citron tea.

It was good to endure her tirade. It felt normal and real.

He went to Jongin’s birthday party, at a warehouse party space with no singing but plenty of dancing. Jongdae got roaring drunk, kissed some tall Chinese kid half a decade younger than him, and ran away to try (fail) not to cry on the balcony after, where Sehun found him and handed over a cup.

“It’s water. You’re a fucking mess,” Sehun said. “Minghao’s now convinced that he’s the world’s worst kisser, thanks.”

“Sorry.”

“I know, Dae,” Sehun said, voice going deep with sympathy, putting his arm around Jongdae’s waist. “Minghao’ll get over it. Probably the next time somebody makes out with him, which will probably be later tonight.”

“I hope so, he’s nice.”

“What’s up with you? It’s like you’re better and worse at the same time.”

It took so long to tell the story that they ended up huddled together, shivering in the cold, Jongdae practically in Sehun’s lap. Because obviously neither of them was smart enough to just go the hell inside.

“Are you kidding me?” Sehun said. “He unilaterally decided ‘o I have a dangerous job, better be all nobly sacrificing blah blah blah’ and purposely just didn’t call to tell you he was alive?”

“Pretty much.”

“What a dickweed.”

It occurred to Jongdae that nobody really seemed to appreciate how useful Sehun was in almost any situation.

“You don’t seem too bothered about the gangster part.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Sehun said. “People have crazy jobs. How’s a gangster any less shitty than a CEO of a regular business? At least they’re honest about the crappy things they do.”

Jongdae thought about all the times Minseok had suggested that he was an asshole, or didn’t deserve him. It didn’t tempt him to change his mind about never seeing Minseok again, but Sehun had a point. Not a _great_ point. But a point.

“You’re really practical,” he said.

“Thanks for noticing,” Sehun said.

“You’re sweet,” Jongdae said, kissing him on the cheek. “And I super appreciate all your help.”

“Gross, hyung,” Sehun said. “But keep up that attitude.”

It kind of felt like an ending, though: making out with Minghao, talking with Sehun. One last party with Chanyeol and Jongin. He talked to his advisors, who approved his thesis outline. His violin teacher gave him the name of a teacher in Muan who would meet the qualification for his certificate. He talked to his voice teacher, who yelled at him for half an hour, then admitted that she had a colleague in Mokpo whom she’d sign off on as a qualifying voice teacher.

He talked to Misoo, who cried, and to Ha Bohrang-ssi, who agreed to meet one of his classmates to continue Misoo’s lessons. That ended up being fun, because he got permission to take Misoo to a concert on campus. The driver picked him up and took him to the house, where he stood outside waiting for Misoo, a single yellow flower in his hand while she walked down the steps in her stiff dress and shiny dress shoes.

“Teacher!” she said, looking at the suit he had bought with a little more of Minseok’s money, slim cut in dark grey wool, “I didn’t know you were handsome!”

Ha Bohrang-ssi snorted.

“I knew perfectly well that you are very pretty,” he said, presenting her with the flower stem while she blushed.

It was fun to walk hand in hand with her across campus, introducing her to his fellow students. He had worked it out that they would sit next to Seohyun from his program, who was warm and friendly and could take over Misoo’s lessons.

Misoo was super cute, poring over the concert program, even though she had only a faint notion of who Chopin was and no idea at all about Vaughn Williams.

“What do you think?” Seohyun asked after the first, Vaughn Williams piece.

“It’s really nice, Unnie!” Misoo said. “I like how his hands bounce around!”

Jongdae and Seohyun smiled at each other over Misoo’s head, and he thought it would turn out all right.

It was late afterward, and the final part of the Chopin had been quiet. Misoo said she wanted to go for ice cream, but she got into the black town car without complaint and sat in Jongdae’s lap, one hand curled around his jacket lapel.

“Did you like it, Eighth Note?”

“It was really pretty, teacher.”

“How did you like Seohyun-ssi? Did you think she was nice?”

“She was really nice, teacher. When we went to the bathroom in the middle, she let me wear her lip gloss.”

“She’s a good person, Eighth Note. When I go away, she’ll help you learn to love the piano.”

Misoo clutched at his jacket harder, tipping her tired little gap-toothed face upward.

“Why are you going away again?”

“My Omma needs me, sweetheart,” Jongdae said.

“But I want you to be my teacher,” Misoo said.

“I know,” Jongdae said. “But how can I say no to my Omma? She needs me too.”

Misoo was so warm and small in his lap, not quite sucking her thumb, but her hand hovering near her mouth.

“Will Unnie be as nice to me as you are?”

“Probably nicer.”

“I liked going to the concert with you.”

“I liked it too, Eighth Note. I could see how you listened hard.”

Misoo snuggled up against him.

“I guess you want to be with your Omma.”

“That doesn’t make me like you any less,” Jongdae said.

“I’ll miss you, teacher.”

“I’ll miss you too, my Eighth Note.”

She was asleep by the time they reached her house. He handed her over to the driver, who smiled at him with soft eyes, and it was yet another kind of goodbye.

Jongin and Chanyeol were both easier and harder: easier in that they understood and didn’t protest his going. Harder in that he had lived with them for years, and he didn’t quite know what he would do without them.

“I mean, we have cell phones,” Chanyeol said.

“And trains and buses,” Jongin said.

Which was nice, even if Jongdae knew it wasn’t that easy. His coworkers at Top Fashion took him out to dinner; likewise Amber and Key. Chanyeol and Jongin helped him pack up his few belongings, and they drove together down to Muan in Chan’s car.

His family had met them before, so it was like Old Home Week. His mom had cooked every food item available in a 10-kilometer radius, and Jongdeok brought enough liquor to get an army drunk enough to embarrass themselves. Appa was able to actually grin at them, and after Jongin performed some weird dancer’s massage on his arms, Appa raised his hand enough to pat Jongin’s.

“Thank you for taking such good care of my son,” Omma said, hugging Chan and Nini on their last night in Muan. “You know you’re always welcome here, no matter what.”

But it was strange, to live without Chan and Nini. To argue again over the bathroom with his brother. The rhythm of their house was totally different from that of his apartment in Seoul. It was so much quieter, which was comforting until it was stifling, which drove him out to walk for hours around the neighborhood.

His new violin teacher was a terrific lady his mom’s age with a weird affection for the modernists, but he liked her attitude that playing music he didn’t have an instinct for would be good for his technique. His new voice teacher was the complete opposite of the one in Seoul: a gentle, quiet man, and it was fun to work with a fellow tenor even despite the longish bus ride. His voice teacher even hooked him up with a job – substituting for some piano and beginner’s violin lessons at a cram school, then taking over when one teacher went on maternity leave.

It was all very convenient. Home was quiet enough that he could write there, sitting next to Appa while he did his reading. Being around in the morning and during the day let Jongdeok have slightly less rushed mornings, and his mom could go out and do the shopping again. She always returned with a smile on her face and a kiss each for himself and Appa. And when he came back from the academy, late, he always found dinner waiting for him.

As much as he liked writing, it would’ve been better to be busier. He could tell that his presence made things easier and happier for his family, and the cram school job would look great on his resume after graduation. But on all the long bus rides, during the hours wandering the library stacks at Mokpo University, his mind always ran to Minseok.

He missed Minseok.

He didn’t regret breaking up. He knew that it was the only smart thing to do. He reminded himself over and over that Minseok had lied to him, had lived an actual lie. And it was wrong, and crappy, and he couldn’t imagine living with the knowledge that his boyfriend was off breaking laws at work all day every day and apparently a target of assassins at night.

But he missed _Minseok_.

He missed being able to tell Min anything, and how Min would listen to him, a serious expression on his face. He missed rolling over in the middle of the night to sling his arm over Minseok’s back. He missed the way Min would say his name, a whole paragraph of ‘settle down and stop worrying’ in two syllables. He missed Min’s mouth so vividly that his own lips tingled sometimes.

And that didn’t seem to be going away. January turned into February, and he still found himself thinking, _I can’t wait to tell Min about this_ , or, when he was tired or when Appa had a bad day, physically longing to curl up next to Minseok and feel his hands in his hair.

“Give yourself time, Dae,” Chan told him on the phone. “Heartbreak is hard. Think about every sad pop song!”

Jongdae laughed at him, and he tried to give himself a break, let himself work through it. Let himself just be sad that he loved someone he couldn’t be with.

It sucked.


	38. Minseok

Kicking Baekhyun out was hardly popular with his colleagues, but Minseok was in such a storm of rage and grief for several days afterward that no one would approach him about it. Every time he saw his own face in the mirror, and the welt Jongdae’s blow had left on his cheek, regret and fury swirled through him all over again. He stalked the hallways with clenched fists, paced the roof garden despite the cold.

D.O. was the first one to approach him, coming up to the roof deck with a coffee in each hand, holding one out to Minseok until he took it with a glare.

“For my part, I apologize,” D.O. said. “I was there too. I could’ve pushed harder, brought Jongdae with us.”

Minseok’s anger winked out, leaving him feeling tired. He sighed.

“Even if you had, I’d still be here, now, without him.”

D.O. raised an eyebrow over his chunky glasses.

“You think so?”

“He’s not a person who can live in our world.”

“Well, that’s the question we all have to keep in the back of our own minds, right? When we stop being people who can live in this world, and what else we could do.”

Minseok gaped at him.

“Gotta have a backup plan, Xiumin.”

D.O. grinned.

“One of these days I just won’t show up to work. I bought a piece of land years ago. It’s got a falling-down house on it, and a great well. I’ve been letting somebody run sheep on it for a few years now, to build up the soil. The second I reach my limit, I’m off to the country, and if you’re really, really lucky, maybe I’ll send you a vegetable basket on occasion.”

“Your backup plan is _farmer_?”

D.O. nodded with a grin.

Incredible.

“Sorry I’ve been a dragon the past few days.”

D.O. raised his cup in a salute.

“Heartbreak’s crappy, Xiumin. We all get it.”

A backup plan. Leaving this life.

Minseok stook on the roof in the cold until he couldn’t feel his face, not really thinking. Just making a space in his reality for the idea of change.

Back in the warmth of his office, he dialed Baekhyun’s number, but the response was an out-of-service announcement.

 

There was plenty of work to make his days busy. No matter how much he may have personally struggled with his profession, it wasn’t in his nature to back down from negotiations or to make any less thorough a risk assessment when provided with data. Even if he left, Suho would be sitting at the top of an organization more powerful (and profitable) than ever. He knew that Suho could hold onto it, too.

His evenings at home replaced reading with internet searches.

There were so many options. How did one choose? How did he figure out what he wanted?

Other than Jongdae. But that, he couldn’t have.

“Come to the ballet with me,” Suho said one day in late January.

Minseok wasn’t sure that he could imagine a more surprising request from this source. But the ballet... He shook his head.

“Why?”

Minseok looked out the window so he wouldn’t have to meet those shrewd eyes.

“His roommate was a dancer. A trainee with the national company.”

“Jongin. I’m aware,” Suho said, unfazed by Minseok’s startle. “Come to the ballet with me tomorrow.”

It was easier to shrug agreement than to argue.

 

They left from the office, not even bothering to pretend that they had enough to say to one another to make dinner feasible. Suho’s seats were excellent: the first row of boxes, where one could see the full stage but close enough to catch detail.

The program was Romeo & Juliet. Minseok waited for some pointed comment from Suho about this, but one never came. The music was lush and a little strange. Minseok ached, imagining how Jongdae would explain it to him, what those sweeping minor chords meant. Even his pride that Minseok could tell it was in a minor key.

There was Jongin, in the minor role of Benvolio, as beautiful as ever, leaping with that grace made all the more astonishing by how clumsy he was in person.

“That,” Suho whispered, pointing to the man dancing Mercutio, “is Sehun.”

And of course it was. But how? He looked over, at the intensity with which Suho’s eyes followed Sehun across the stage. At the naked longing in his expression.

Oh.

Large swaths of the ballet passed in a blur. Such sympathy, from such an unexpected source, staggered him. The armor he had so carefully constructed to protect himself from his own pain threatened to crumble.

He joined Suho in standing at the end, when Jongin and Sehun took their bows.

“I’ve met him,” Minseok said over tumblers of whisky at a nearby bar.

The complex set of emotions on Suho’s face made him look so young. Minseok would’ve bet a considerable sum that, like himself, Suho felt nothing like young.

“How?”

“He was at - Jongdae’s birthday party in the fall. Because he knows Jongin.”

“He’s completely maddening,” Suho said, gripping his glass too tightly for its own safety. “He’s bratty and rude and completely full of himself.”

And kind and silly, on top of being ridiculously handsome, so far as Minseok remembered.

“What is it about the maddening ones that grip us so entirely?” he said.

Suho laughed unhappily.

“What made Jongdae maddening?”

Surely he could speak of it for just a minute. Remember some of the good things.

“He was a champion worrier. Any excuse he could find to fret about something, he would. And oh, he would whine. You’ve never heard such pestering, he was as bad as -“

He choked.

“Surely not,” Suho said gently. “No one could possibly pester like Baekhyun.”

“Shit.”

“I worry about him.”

“Yes.”

“I think we’ve fucked ourselves over completely,” Suho said after a minute. “We went and let ourselves start to care.”

They clinked glasses morosely.

“I used to worry that you’d team up with Baekhyun and leave me at the bottom of the river,” Minseok said after a pause.

Suho laughed.

“I would never have,” he said. “My plan was always to come after you with D.O.”

Minseok snorted, then shivered.

“I think that might be worse,” he said.

“Quieter, anyway.”

Suho sighed.

“I don’t have a violent takeover in me anymore. I just - don’t want it.”

“No,” Minseok said.

“Of course I have to worry about maintaining enough cash flow to keep Sehun in the lifestyle with which he would like to become acquainted,” Suho said, fondness making his voice warm. “You have it easier there, I think.”

“Well. There’s the obstacle of his having said he never wanted to see me again.”

Suho shook his head.

“Are you sure he didn’t say he never wanted to see Xiumin again?”

Minseok stared at him.

“Aha. For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen that guy in a couple of months,” Suho said.


	39. Minseok

Hope was a terrible thing. But Minseok let it drive him. Despite his certainty that there would be no trouble, he moved a great deal of his personal money into diverse new accounts before he officially approached Suho and D.O.

They both clapped him on the back and grinned at him.

“You figured out your backup plan?” D.O. asked.

“I’ll make an honest man of myself,” Minseok said. “Become a real actuary.”

Suho snorted.

“It’s a good time for you to go, at least,” he said. “Everybody wants to make us happy. You ought to be safe, as long as you don’t stay in Seoul.”

“I won’t.”

They smiled at each other, their careful not-asking and not-volunteering of where he would go.

“Thanks for not minding,” Minseok said.

Suho shrugged.

“One of us was bound to go eventually. I’ll call Lay in from China to tide us over until someone local ramps up to speed.”

“Oh lord, get ready for twelve-hour work days,” D.O. groaned.

Minseok didn’t regret missing out on that.

“Keep your number,” D.O. said, shaking his hand. “I’ll text you when your vegetable basket’s ready.”

“I look forward to it.”

It took only a few days for their best forger to turn out his paperwork: a national ID card, college transcripts, health and rental records. He and Sooyoung-ssi concocted a fake resume that was solid without being impressive, and she farmed out instructions to provide (also fake) employment references for him among junior-level staff who were willing to follow instructions without questioning.

Minseok took Sooyoung-ssi out shopping and to dinner, enduring her afternoon-long lecture about his personal and professional foolhardiness because he understood that it was her way of saying she’d miss him. He left an unwieldy amount of cash in her locked desk drawer, where it would take her a day or so to find it.

He kept the car but downgraded to a more reasonable apartment near the cram school he’d attend. It transpired that the underwriters exam was coming up in just under a month, requiring a last-minute change in plan. The advisor at the cram school was highly skeptical that he could possibly learn the material in that short a period of time and suggested that Minseok settle in for a full year of study.

Minseok passed the exam with a wide margin of error. He looked at the certificate, reading ‘Kim Minseok,’ with several red official seals at the bottom, and knew that he had crossed the first, highest hurdle. Xiumin really was gone. From here on out, he was Minseok. And he wanted Jongdae to know it.

 

It was always going to be easy to find him.

Minseok searched music producers in Seoul and found exactly one Chanyeol. It took him three days to get the email to sound appropriately earnest but not desperate. (Even if he was desperate.) To explain without making excuses for himself.

“I know I hurt him, Chanyeol,” it said toward the end. “I want the chance to make that right.”

According to the read notification, Chanyeol read the email five minutes after Minseok sent it. The response came through eighteen minutes later - not that he timed it.

“Let’s meet for coffee.”

Minseok showed up at the appointed place and time. Chanyeol was late, but not by so much that Minseok had begun to worry. His hair was black and curly now. It flattered him. He waved at Minseok and ordered before approaching the table.

Minseok stood. What did one say to the best friend of one’s ex-boyfriend whom one had treated horribly with the best, most misguided intentions?

“Hey, Minseok. You don’t look like you’ve been doing too great.”

He supposed it was true. Aside from the heart troubles, stuffing a year’s worth of test materials into one’s brain in three and a half weeks had not been easy nor allowed for much sleep. He was pleased but exhausted, and his edges felt frayed.

“Whereas you look very well, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol smiled.

“I am, actually. Business is going really well. I’ll be able to afford a nicer studio soon.”

It was very welcome to hear some good news.

“I miss Dae, though, you know?” Chanyeol said softly.

Minseok nodded. That he knew intimately.

A large hand covered his.

“Min. Are you all healed up from your thing?”

It was too much to look into Chanyeol’s big, sympathetic eyes. Who was he? He used to be one of the hardest men in South Korea.

But he didn’t miss that man.

He nodded again.

“That’s good. It sounds like it was really scary.”

He supposed it was. Part of the usual risk for his ilk. But for a normal person, yes. Really scary.

“Yes.”

“I can see why you thought you had to protect Dae from that.”

Minseok’s shock made him look up. Chanyeol’s smile was wry, but he didn’t let go of Minseok’s hand.

“I think you were totally wrong, but I can see why you thought it.”

And Minseok had to laugh at that, even if it was a sad little laugh.

“Completely and utterly wrong,” he said.

Chanyeol nodded and sat back, looking satisfied.

“I’m glad to hear that. Now tell me what you meant when you said ‘make it right’ in your email.”

This was what Jongdae deserved: friends who truly protected him. Who respected his strength. It was good to have this example to emulate.

“I gave up that life,” Minseok said. “I’m trying to –“

He saw Chanyeol’s frown. He thought he could guess what it meant.

“It’s not that I think I deserve him,” he said. “Or that I think there’s any kind of ploy I can use to get him back. I just hope that – if I can become, if I can find in myself the man he thought he saw. Then I suppose that even if he never gives me another chance, I’ll still be better off.”

And Chanyeol smiled, wide and watery-eyed, and leaned in to take his hand again.

“Oh, good answer, Min. Very, very good answer.”

He slid a piece of paper across the table.

“Dae’s with his parents, outside Muan.”


	40. Minseok

It was tremendously difficult not to jump into his car and speed southeast, no matter how unwise it would be. Doing so would put him pounding on Jongdae’s parents’ front door in the early hours of the morning, which would hardly improve his chances.

He was supposed to be a cautious planner. He was supposed to be shrewd. He exercised some of his renowned self-discipline. There were plenty of insurance companies in Muan and Mokpo. Some of them were even hiring.

He drove down for interviews, staying in the hotel farthest away from the little pin on the online map that indicated Jongdae’s parents’ house that was still reasonable for his interview schedule. He kept his shoulders loose and smiled more than he wanted to, tried to channel some semblance of Jongdae’s enthusiasm. Drove back to Seoul and waited.

And when he received the text he wanted, he called Chanyeol.

“He’ll meet you,” Chanyeol said after some back-and-forth and the most nerve-wracking two hours of Minseok’s life. “Be prepared for some grumpiness, Min. He is _not_ happy. But he’ll see you.”

“Thank you for this.”

“Hey, man. I just want my friends to be happy. Good luck.”

 

Minseok drove back down to Muan, to the public park Chanyeol had told him about. He sat on a bench, hands in his jacket pockets, and hoped. Just hoped that Jongdae would even show up.

Ten minutes late, he did. Wearing the coat Minseok had bought him for his birthday. Jongdae was overly pale, and his hair was longer, falling into his eyes. Even with irritation plain on his face, he looked gorgeous. Minseok reminded himself to breathe. Stood up.

“Chanyeol said you had something to say to me,” Jongdae said, standing over a meter away, hands in his pockets, still scowling.

Minseok nodded.

“He said I should hear you out. That’s the only reason I’m standing here.”

And as much as he had rehearsed this, had prepared for it, Minseok had no idea how to start. He couldn’t even hold Jongdae’s gaze. He didn’t deserve to. It was all Minseok could do to stare at his chin.

Jongdae sighed.

“What do you want, Xiumin?”

Not the most auspicious beginning – but no surprise, either.

Minseok knelt.

Jongdae pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. He glared at the ground to Minseok’s left.

“I was wrong,” Minseok said.

Maybe it was ridiculous that Jongdae’s brief glance gave him hope.

“I was wrong to hide myself from you. I was wrong to hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

Jongdae stared at the ground for several breaths more.

“That’s it?” he said finally.

“I have no right to do anything other than apologize.”

Jongdae clenched his fists.

“Just say it, Min.”

This was a gift Jongdae gave him, one last chance to speak what was in his heart.

“I miss you,” he said. “Every minute not spent with you is a waste. But I know – I _know_ , Jongdae – that I broke your trust.”

“You broke my _heart._ ”

Minseok found it necessary to breathe for a minute. Then he nodded at his knees.

“Mine too,” he said. “It took me a while to understand just how completely. I found myself – unable to go on, as I had before. It was too ugly, too cruel. And it would never be based on anything other than lies.”

When he looked up, Jongdae was gazing at him. Minseok told himself very firmly not to read any less anger in Jongdae’s expression.

“May I show you something?”

“Sure,” Jongdae said flatly.

Minseok pulled the envelope from his breast pocket and handed it over. Jongdae removed the certificate. Reading it made his eyebrows lift.

“What is this?”

“There is no Xiumin anymore,” Minseok said. “And Minseok can’t get a job without proper certification.”

“This is real? You actually went to an academy and took the actual exam and everything?”

“I did.”

He still frowned, but Jongdae put the certificate carefully back into the envelope.

“Get up off the ground, Minseok.”

He did as he was told, brushed gravel off his knees.

“I’m glad for you. That you did that,” Jongdae said eventually.

“I want,” Minseok said. “I want to find out whether it’s possible to be who you thought I was.”

He watched Jongdae struggle with that, and he ached with the desire to step toward him. But here he was, causing Jongdae yet more pain.

“You can’t just walk back into my life, Min.”

“Of course not. I would never presume to think so.”

Jongdae looked up, fists tight, as if trying to summon patience.

“What I mean,” he said through clenched teeth, “is that you’re going to have to _earn_ it.”

“Of course, I won’t bother you with. Wait.”

Jongdae snorted.

Minseok found that there was insufficient air around him. The sun seemed brighter in the winter sky.

“Do you mean that?” Minseok asked. “I can have a chance?”

“I’m not making any promises.”

Minseok was ready to make every promise. But he would earn them first. He would.

“May I show you something else?”

At Jongdae’s nod, Minseok dug his phone out of his pocket and thumbed it open to show the text message, handed the phone over.

“Junior underwriter at Hansan Insurance – is this a job offer?”

“I haven’t accepted it yet.”

“You got an actual professional certificate and came all the way to Muan and got a job offer?”

“If you don’t want me near you, I’ll turn it down.”

“You used to be one of the most powerful gangsters in the country and you came looking for a _junior underwriter_ job at an insurance company in Muan?”

“I love you,” Minseok said, wholly unsure where this conversation was going and helpless in the face of it. “I can’t love you and be a gangster anymore, it doesn’t work. Even if you don’t want me, I just – I just can’t, anymore.”

“God dammit, Minseok, how am I supposed to take this?”

“I don’t know,” Minseok said. “I don’t know what you should do. I don’t know what I should do. I just know that I love you, and I wish I could make you happy. But even if I can’t, this is the road I’m walking right now. This Kim Minseok, junior underwriter. He’s got to be a better man than Xiumin was. Even if he's not who you –“

Jongdae closed the space between them and yanked on his jacket lapels.

“Shut up, Minseok,” he said.

This was so far beyond anything he had hoped for: Jongdae’s warm mouth, his insistent tongue. The familiar, beloved curve of his jaw under Minseok’s hand.

“You get the first one for free,” Jongdae said when they broke apart. “You’ll have to work for the next one, Min, I mean it. You have to do everything right, you hear me?”

“I will,” Minseok murmured, unable to look away from Jongdae’s face, barely able to believe that this was real. “I’ll do whatever you ask of me, I’ll prove it to you, I promise.”

“Dammit,” Jongdae said, and kissed him again, fierce and hungry.

“Two for free,” he said eventually. “But you have to earn the next one.”

It took just under ten minutes. Admittedly, the kiss after that took a week to earn, but it was a busy time that involved starting a new job, buying a house, and moving, so Minseok wasn’t able to spend quite every moment showering Jongdae with adoration. But that was all right. He would take all the time it needed.


	41. Epilogue (Jongdae)

(Six weeks later)

 

 

“I’ll be fifteen minutes away, call me if you need anything and I’ll come right over,” Jongdae said.

His mother piled a second box on top of the one he was already holding and grinned at him.

“I know exactly how far away you’ll be, darling, I’ve been to Minseok’s house a dozen times,” she said. “And you’ll still be here in the mornings, anyway.”

“Omma. I’m just saying.”

“You’re just saying anything that comes to mind because you’re excited, Jongdae. I know how you are. You’ll wear Minseok’s ears out by dinner time.”

“Nonsense, they’ve been toughened up by months of dating him,” Minseok said from behind him, making Jongdae jump.

He turned around, ready to snap at Min for scaring him, until the sight before him left him speechless.

“Omma,” he said. “Is that a – ponytail on top of Min’s head?”

Minseok brushed his hand across it and grinned.

“My son, with his almost master’s degree,” Omma said wryly.

“Hyung. I’m already moving into your house, you don’t have to _lure_ me with a display of enhanced cuteness.”

Minseok rolled his eyes and took the two boxes out of Jongdae’s arms to place into the trunk of his car. Jongdae’s mom handed him another box.

And yeah. So he was a little excited. Just like a teeny, tiny, way little bit completely excited.

He only had a few boxes of stuff left at his parents’ house: he’d been carrying clothes and stuff over to Minseok’s place all week, and Minseok had set up his guest room as a practice room for Jongdae several weeks ago, so his violin and all his music were already over there too.

When they were both buckled in, Minseok smiled at him – this broad, tender smile that was a new feature of their post-stupidity relationship. Jongdae liked it.

“Ready to go home?” Min asked in a soft voice.

Jongdae’s heart tripped over itself.

“Ready.”

At home, Minseok dutifully carried boxes inside, then sat in the middle of the bed and tried not to look like he was losing his mind while Jongdae unpacked. Jongdae knew exactly what he was doing, and he could barely hold back his grin.

Since they got back together, Minseok was holding to his promise to do everything right. They took everything at Jongdae’s pace, under Jongdae’s rules. He knew this wouldn’t last forever – didn’t want it to last forever, as his trust grew – but in the meantime, Jongdae was more than happy to order Min around and drive him crazy with the kind of non-touching touches that Min had used on him when they first started dating.

Here he was, moving in, and they hadn’t even gotten past kissing yet.

Minseok kept shifting in the center of the bed, and Jongdae knew he was staring at Jongdae’s hands and his ass. Jongdae also knew, and trusted, that if he said no sex, even while they lived together, Minseok would respect it.

Lucky for everybody, that was not going to be the case.

The past week had been like being fourteen all over again. Jongdae had laughed so hard at himself, masturbating in his parents’ freaking shower, trying to keep it quiet enough and quick enough not to get caught. Ridiculous.

“So you want to go out to dinner?” he asked over his shoulder, just to be a brat.

“I do not,” Minseok said, his nostrils flaring.

He shifted again. Jongdae could practically hear the mental ‘ARGH’ going on in his head.

“You should call for takeout then. Whatever you want,” Jongdae said, folding sweaters into a dresser drawer.

Acting all cool and unaffected. Like he wasn’t acutely aware of his own dick and the plans he had for it.

Minseok climbed off the bed and went into the kitchen. Jongdae covered his mouth to muffle his laughter.

He unpacked, and they ate the dumplings and seafood stew Min had ordered. It was so cute the way Minseok let Jongdae feed him, going soft under Jongdae’s brief touches to his hands and and knees. His cheeks went a little pink when Jongdae skootched over to sit close to him, their legs pressed together.

Jongdae would take this flustered, open Minseok over inscrutability any day. He kind of looked forward to the return of the dommy parts, though.

“Hyung,” he said, and laid his hand on Minseok’s thigh. Minseok took a shaky breath.

Jongdae climbed into his lap. Min’s next breath was even shakier. Jongdae cupped his chin and smiled down into that handsome, beloved face.

“Welcome home,” Min whispered.

Jongdae kissed him, soft and slow.

“It’s not the house, Min,” he said. “It’s you.”

Minseok tilted his chin upward, and the next kiss was more heated. Jongdae grabbed Minseok’s hands, from where they rested demurely on his knees, and put them on his ass. Minseok inhaled sharply, pulled Jongdae’s hips tight against him, and deepened the kiss.

It had been so long. Jongdae felt like he would start trembling any minute. Finally. Finally, he could be here, where he wanted to be, and feel safe about it. Minseok was working so hard to regain his trust.

Jongdae stood. He watched Minseok sigh, lick his bottom lip, and try to calm his breathing, assuming that was it.

Poor Min. Jongdae had really put him through the wringer.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said.

Minseok stood up so fast that it happened in a blur, eyes wide.

“You’re sure?”

Jongdae took his hand and pulled. Halfway down the hall, Minseok stopped, his eyes crinkled up into crescents.

“I thought we were taking things slow,” he said, laughter in his voice. “I don’t have anything.”

Jongdae pulled him close and laughed into his neck. He couldn’t believe Min remembered that. This was so right.

“Hyung,” he said. “I’m prepared to not leave the house until we run out of clean sheets.”

Minseok gave a low growl and pushed him against the wall, kissed him hard.

“We have a washing machine, Jongdae.”

“And I have a lot of lube.”

It was pretty hard to kiss and laugh at the same time, but worth trying.

Minseok’s fingers shook when he lifted Jongdae’s sweater over his head. Jongdae took his hand and kissed those fingers.

“What do you want?”

Minseok’s voice was low and hoarse. Jongdae put his hands up under Minseok’s shirt.

“I want you in me,” he said, and kissed Minseok’s neck. “Our second first time.”

He could tell by Minseok’s slow smile that he remembered that too.

Their second first time was even better. Months of separation had done nothing to make them forget how well they knew each other’s bodies. Jongdae put his mouth on all those places he had missed – under Minseok’s ear, his collarbone, the little hollow under his sternum, until Min said “let me” with a slow grin.

Minseok stripped him slowly, mouth following hands but not touching Jongdae’s cock yet. Sucking on the hollow above Jongdae’s hipbone until Jongdae moaned, then licking at Jongdae’s cock.

“Hyung,” Jongdae said, “don’t go too fast.”

Minseok pulled off, moving upward until their faces were level, his clothed hips grinding down hard against Jongdae’s bare cock.

“I know you haven’t forgotten that much,” Minseok said in a low growl Jongdae hadn’t heard since November.

The sound of it made his cock twitch and his heart melt.

“No, hyung.”

He arched up to press closer, and Minseok worked his neck until he was panting. When Jongdae reached up under the pillow for the bottle he had placed there, Minseok paused, smiled, and kissed him hard.

“So well prepared,” he murmured.

“I wasn’t going to make you wait forever,” Jongdae said, gasping when one finger breached him. “You’re too hot.”

“I would’ve waited as long as it took.”

His hand moved slowly, so good.

“I know, hyung.”

“I want to be what you need,” Minseok said, moving his mouth softly down the side of Jongdae’s face.

“You are, Min.”

“I want to be what you want.”

Another finger, another gasp, and Jongdae had to fight to keep his breath soft, desire and emotion trying to send him over an edge into mindlessness.

“Minseok.”

Min kissed him, tongue soft and tasting just a little bit of salt from Jongdae’s cock. His hand moved; he added another finger, and Jongdae groaned.

“Minseok.”

“Yes,” Minseok whispered, tongue tracing the curve of his ear.

“I love you, hyung.”

Everything stilled, though Minseok didn’t draw his fingers out. But he looked down at Jongdae, a smile hovering around the corners of his lips and his eyes shining.

Another second first time.

“I love you with everything I am,” Minseok said.

Jongdae’s heart felt like it took up all the room inside him. They could do this. They _would_ do it. He was in this all the way.

He smiled.

“So beautiful,” Minseok murmured.

He kissed Jongdae again, laughing low when Jongdae turned his hips down to get more of Minseok’s fingers inside, then fucking him slow and sweet with his hand.

“I want to see you,” Minseok said when Jongdae was ready, open and begging for more.

“Yes, hyung.”

Up on his knees, Minseok took the condom Jongdae handed him, then entered him so slowly that Jongdae had to pause in his groaning twice just to breathe. He felt so full, and so relieved. Minseok looked so gorgeous, with his eyebrows furrowed and abs tensed.

“Hyung,” he said. “For shit’s sake, please move.”

Minseok glared and snapped his hips. The sound Jongdae made was probably a little too high-pitched to be described as a moan.

“Maddening,” he said. “You drive me absolutely mad.”

Jongdae tilted his hips and squeezed his ass, just to drive Min a little more mad. It worked, of course. Minseok moved in him with long, deep thrusts, until Jongdae was similarly out of his mind, crying out when Min grabbed his cock in one slick fist.

For once, Minseok came first, groaning out “my love” and arching, his head tipped back, more beautiful than anything Jongdae had ever seen.

And all his.

Once he had ridden it out, Minseok dipped his chin low and worked Jongdae hard – if not quickly – still inside, staring at Jongdae’s face until Jongdae screamed his name, coming so hard that he got himself right in his own chin.

So messy. So hot. So perfect.

Later, when they were clean and sleepy, changing the sheets for the first night both at home together, Jongdae looked over at Minseok’s small smile, the soft expression in his eyes, and knew that he was in the right place, with no regrets.

“Happy birthday, hyung,” he said.

Minseok’s smile was so bright that it could light up a city.

“I love you, Min.”


End file.
